


Think of Me Before I Go

by Blossomdail



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Also like I don’t actually ship Tim with any of these people lol, Anal Sex, Angst, Dark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Porn With Plot, Sex, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake is Not Okay, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, i just think it would make for a good fic, other sex things but i'm not tagging them all, slight dubcon but everything is consenual, there's actually a plot this time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:02:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blossomdail/pseuds/Blossomdail
Summary: Looking back on it years later, he still wouldn’t know what compelled him to turn to Steph, dislodge her head from his shoulder, look her in the eyes, and tell her in a whisper,“I’m sleeping with Bruce.”Steph blinks.------Feeling like everyone's second choice, Tim puts himself in the family the only way he can think of and he knows it's not good, he knows it's bad, yet he can't seem to stop.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Dick Grayson, Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 79
Kudos: 207





	1. The Start of a New Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s something in Bruce’s face, like he’s begging Tim not to do what Tim is about to do next, but they both know Tim’s going to do it.
> 
> And he does. Tim kisses Bruce again.

The Red Robin suit is absolutely disgusting by the time Tim kicks it off and chucks it onto the floor of the shower room. Tonight was not a fun night: Tim managed to fall into two dumpsters, which wouldn’t have been too bad if he also hadn’t had to run after a would be rapist into the sewer. At least he didn’t run into the Killer Croc. Huzzah for small miracles.

Tim sighs as he steps into the shower, feeling his muscles tense first at the hot water then relax. No broken bones or stab wounds for tonight at least, but there are a few small scratches and bruises. If anything, Tim is tired. The new route isn’t something he’s 100% familiar with just yet. He really shouldn’t have gone out without the new territory being memorized, but he has too.

(That’s what he tells himself anyway.) Sure, he could ask Batman to cover his route tonight if he really didn’t want to go out, but Batman would take Robin and Tim would rather get on his knees and suck off the Joker before he let the little demon brat take over his territory, even if it was for just one night. 

The water runs long after all the soap is gone, and Tim soaks it up before deciding to turn it off and get out. He sees that Alfred has already collected his suit and has left a tray on a bench. It should concern Tim how he hadn’t even heard Alfred come in, but then again, Tim’s thoughts aren’t exactly in the right place.

On the tray sits a turkey sandwich, a glass of milk, and an apple. Tim eyes it as he wraps a towel around himself, then a bathrobe. He grabs the tray and takes it to his room, though he knows he won’t eat it all. Before Bruce “died”, they’d eat their after patrol snack together, in the Batcave, as they walked through what they did that night. They even talked. 

Those days are over though. Now Tim dresses for bed and sips at the milk, leaving the food untouched and thinking about how much he hates Bruce. Because Bruce isn’t in the Batcave waiting for Tim’s report. No. Bruce is doing whatever he needs to do at this time. Sleeping, most likely. Being lost in time really messed him up, in a lot of ways. It’s why he’s not back to being Batman at night every night like he used to. He can’t stay awake long enough just yet, even though it’s been months, which is why Gotham has been split into territories. 

It’s going to be different when he’s ready to go back to Batman 24/7. Tim is dreading it, even though he can’t keep going like this. He hates being Red Robin. He hates his name, the costume, and what it means. Red Robin should never exist. He should still be Robin. 

And he hates Dick who took it from him. 

And he hates Bruce, who came back and allowed Damian to stay Robin. 

Tim sets the milk on the tray and leaves it on the dresser. He’ll bring it down to Alfred tomorrow. For now, Tim crawls into bed, suddenly exhausted.  
He wakes at noon, but that’s the price you pay when you stay out till 4 am fighting crime. Alfred already has a pot of coffee going, which Tim is so thankful for but can’t formulate the words just yet. It’s still far too early, but he does take the cup of coffee from Alfred’s outstretched hands.

Damian and Bruce are already eating their lunch. Tim sits on the opposite side of Damian with Bruce at the head of the table. They’re eating a soup of some sort, and while Tim will get to his soup eventually, he focuses on his coffee.

It’s black, just the way he likes it. It was something he used to feel so proud over, something he could bond over with Bruce, especially since Dick poured enough cream and sugar into his coffee to give him a cavity, if he even drank it at all. 

Things are different now though. Tim watches as Damian delicately dips a cracker into his tomato soup. Bruce reads the newspaper, only glancing up to take a bite of his own soup. Neither acknowledge Tim.

That . . . upsets Tim, no matter how much he tries to tell himself it doesn’t. Dark thoughts sweep through his brain before he can stop them. Did Bruce greet Damian? Or did they both walk into the kitchen together? Things are so different now. Tim doesn’t know how anything works these days. 

He feels his fingers clench into the coffee cup. He doesn’t care about Damian, but is it too fucking much for Bruce to acknowledge him? To say good morning? (Or, well, afternoon.) Will he even speak to Tim if Tim doesn’t speak first?

Tim is finding his place in this new world and he’s not sure he likes it. 

Alfred sets a bowl of soup in front him after Tim drinks half his coffee, and Tim mumbles a thankful before shoving three large spoonfuls into his mouth. Damian scoffs from across from him, and Tim is prepared for a verbal scoff. 

“You look like a starving dog,” Damian sneers. “Really, Drake, at least try to act like a human.”

Tim doesn’t answer him, and instead snaps his head up to see what Bruce will do. Bruce doesn’t even glance up from his newspaper. Evidently, it’s Alfred that chastises the little creep.

“Master Damian, may I remind you that you yourself happens to act like a starving dog after a night out as well.”

Tim barely hears Alfred’s words or Damian’s response. His blood is roaring in his ears and he’s looking at Bruce, who isn’t doing anything. Do something, he wants to yell. Why do you let him talk to me like that? Aren’t I your son too? 

He’s vaguely aware of him dropping his spoon into his soup, that it splatters onto the table but his ears are ringing. Bruce only now looks at him, slight concern on his face, as if he can’t be bothered with Tim unless Tim is doing something he shouldn’t be. 

It hurts. The feeling of rejection, it hurts. It also settles deep into Tim like a leech who won’t let go. It’s everywhere, and suddenly Tim thinks he might cry or scream or maybe do both. 

What he does instead is say, “I’m moving out.”

The words are out of his mouth before he registers them. He blinks, startled at them himself. He hadn’t meant to say them, but now that he has, he’s suddenly so glad. Yes. He’s moving out.

“What?” For the first time the entire morning, Bruce talks to him. It’s satisfying, and it hurts all at the same time. 

Alfred jumps in before Tim can respond, clutching a water jug in his hands as he refills Damian’s glass. “I believe Master Tim said he was moving out.” And though he says it clearly, Tim can see the emotion behind Alfred’s eyes.

A part of Tim softens. He may be mad at Bruce and Dick, and he may hate Damian and Jason, but he never wanted to hurt Alfred, who’s been more of a father to Tim than Bruce has in the past few months.

Still. Now that the words are out, Tim can’t take them back and he finds that he doesn’t want to. He hadn’t planned for this, and if he had then surely this isn’t the way it would go, but he’s latched onto this plan now and there’s no going back. 

“Yes,” Tim says, swallowing around a lump in his throat. He uses his napkin to dab at the spilled soup. It’s an excuse to collect himself for a few seconds, to let him think what he’s going to say next. “I have everything planned out. I’ll be gone by the end of the week.”

It’s a lie, but he doesn’t really care. A week is plenty of time to find an apartment and sign the lease. And if he can’t, well. Maybe he’ll move in with Kon. He’s sure Ma Kent won’t mind. And if she does, then he’ll stay at the Tower just long enough to find an apartment. But Tim highly doubts it’ll come to that. He’ll find something. 

When he finally glances up, he’s met with three sets of eyes staring at him, but he focuses on Bruce. The older man looks so much older than he did just a year ago. He looks at Tim as if Tim just announced he was pregnant, or that he was going to dye his hair green- as if Tim had announced something so ridiculous that Bruce couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

“You’re moving out,” Bruce says, and it’s not a question but Tim answers anyway. 

“Yes. 

Bruce blinks and finally sets down his stupid newspaper. Tim hadn’t even realized Bruce was still holding onto it. “Why?”

And that angers Tim, because it really shows just how fucking oblivious Bruce is, doesn’t it? He’s supposedly the world’s greatest detective, and yet he can’t even seem to fathom why Tim would want to move out, as if Tim is so happy at the manor and that everything is so okay.

Everything is not okay, Tim thinks and clears his throat. “I don’t belong here anymore.”

And Alfred says, “Don’t be ridiculous, Master Tim. Of course you do,” and Damian scoffs, “Well, you’re finally right about something, Drake,” but Tim isn’t paying attention to them. His attention is on his pseudo-father, who looks even more confused. 

“Tim,” he starts to say, but then closes his mouth, as if Bruce couldn’t find the words he wants to say. What he does say is, “Where would you even go?”

Something breaks inside of Tim when he realizes Bruce isn’t going to put up a fight. He’s going to get the details out of Tim, and then let him go. He’s not going to bed, Tim realizes. He’s not going to beg Tim to say, or tell him that he’s being ridiculous. He’s going to let Tim go, and he’s not going to care.

Something breaks inside of Tim. He thinks it might be his heart. 

Tim wets his lips, aware of the wetness starting to gather behind his eyes but he won’t cry. Not in front of Damian, and certainly not in front of his Bruce. “I have a place,” he lies, and is determined that he’ll go out today and sign a damn lease even if it means begging and throwing a too big amount of money at a slumlord. He’ll do it. 

“You do?” Alfred asks, but it’s not really a question. He’s looking at Tim as if he sees right through him. “We’ll, I’m sure Master Bruce won’t mind taking a look around, then. Just to make sure everything is set up for his son.”

“No,” Tim says, a little harshly. He lowers his tone, because he doesn’t want to snap at Alfred again. “I mean, it’s alright. I don’t need any help.”

“Tim,” Bruce says, and he sounds like he can’t process what is happening in front of eyes. Bruce thinks he’s missing something, but he’s not sure what. “I-”

“It’s settled,” Tim says, and he pushes out his chair and stands. “I need to start packing. Have fun on patrol tonight.” He turns towards Alfred and gives the best smile he can manage, although it probably looks more like a grimace. “Thanks for lunch.”

The matter was settled. Lunch was over, Tim was moving out, and Bruce wasn’t going to stop him. 

\----

The rest of the week is spent with Tim avoiding Bruce and only talking to him about their night time activities. He avoids Alfred, because he knows that Alfred might just be able to talk him out of leaving and Tim doesn’t want that. He also doesn’t want to see Alfred’s disappointed glance because Tim knows it’ll make him cry. 

What he does do for the week is pack and set up security measurements at his new apartment. The company offered Tim numerous penthouses, but Tim wanted to find his own place, something that wasn’t attached to Bruce, even if Tim was paying for it with his CEO salary. It was time Tim let go of Bruce, because it was clear Bruce had already let go of Tim.

The night before he officially moves out, Tim does a final sweep of his room. It’s mostly packed save for a few pairs of underwear and T-Shirts, and Tim carefully grabs them and places them into a final box. 

There’s a knock on the door and Tim glances up from where he’s sitting on his bed. It’s late, but not late enough for Batman and Robin to start patrol. “Yeah?”

“Tim?” Bruce calls from behind the door, “It’s me. Can I come in?”

Tim shrugs and then realizes Bruce can’t see him, so he sighs and calls out, “Yeah, sure.” He doesn’t exactly want to talk to Bruce, but he also does in the same way he wanted his parents to care about him and not leave for a new country.

Bruce enters the room and Tim’s hit with something he can’t explain as his pseudo-father smiles at him and carefully sits down next to Tim. Bruce looks tired. There’s no way else to explain it. His bags under his eyes are a deep purple, and it seems his hair has grayed even more since he’s gotten back from being lost in time. 

Tim wonders, briefly, if he’s partly to blame for it. 

Bruce’s not dressed for Batman yet, but he’s also not Bruce Wayne right now. He’s just Bruce, dressed in slacks and a button down shirt. He looks run down and weary, as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders. Yet he smiles at Tim, and Tim hates it but his stomach swoops. 

“Tim,” he says, “my son.”

“I’m not your son.” It comes out of Tim’s throat in a growl, and he jerks from the bed to stand up so that he’s momentarily taller than Bruce. “I’m not your fucking son.” He doesn’t know what has come over him, because he has never wanted to say those words. In fact, it seemed like he always wanted the opposite, to be Bruce’s son in the way that Damian was. 

He’s just so angry, and he wants Bruce to hurt, hurt as much as Tim is hurting and this is the only way Tim can think of. 

(It’s also a lie, because Bruce did legally adopt him after his parents died, but Tim doesn’t allow himself to think about that.)

Bruce frowns and shakes his head. He does look hurt, and a sick part of Tim is so happy about that. “Of course you’re my son. Tim, if there’s something I did to make you feel that way-”

“Something you did?” Tim cries, and his voice sounds manic even to his own years. He can’t believe this. How fucking dare Bruce-he doesn’t even know-well fuck him-Tim’s ears are ringing- “It’s-fuck you. Fuck you Bruce.”

He should stop, let Bruce talk, let him say his peace about how he doesn’t know how Tim’s feeling, how Tim is his son and he should stay at the manor when both know that’s not true. But Tim should let Bruce say it and calm down, but his ears are ringing and his blood is pulsing. He’s so angry. He’s so hurt.

“You’re not my dad.”

He shakes his head as if that’ll clear it, as it will stop all he’s feeling, but that’s impossible. A million emotions are racing through Tim right now and Bruce isn’t making it any better. Bruce is looking at Tim as if Tim kicked a puppy and all Tim wants to do is grab Bruce’s shoulders and shake him, shake him until he can finally realize how fucked up this whole thing is. 

“Tim, I adopted you. I love you. I’m sorry if you feel like perhaps I haven’t given you enough attention since I got back-”

Attention? Is that what Bruce thinks this is about? As if Tim is five and he’s jealous over a new baby brother, instead of a demon brat who took his brother, took his mentor (DAD) and his suit? His name? Who tried to kill him, who tells him everyday how Tim isn’t Bruce’s real son?

Attention?

“If you think this is about attention,” Tim says softly but in a low, dangerous voice, one that says he’s about to explode, “then you should change your name to the world’s dumbest detective.”

It’s a crappy dig, one that a five year old might make up, but Bruce just frowns and doesn’t rise to the jibe. “Help me understand then, son. I want to help you. I don’t want you to leave. You don't have to leave.”

“I’m not your son,” is all Tim says because he can’t. He can’t tell Bruce what the real issue is. All he knows is that he wants Bruce to stop saying he’s Tim’s dad, because he stopped being Bruce’s son the minute Bruce came back and chose Damian over Tim. 

And he needs to make Bruce see that. (Later, that’s what he’ll tell himself, because he just won’t ever be able to admit just how much he had truly loved Bruce even before he died.) So, he does the only thing he can think of to make Bruce see that. 

He leans down and slants his mouth over Bruce’s. 

It’s not technically a kiss. Tim’s lips push against Bruce’s closed mouth, and Bruce’s eyes are shocked and panicked, and he doesn’t kiss Tim back. Bruce’s lips are warm but chapped, not exactly the softness Tim had imagined as a kid when he had a crush on Bruce Wayne, the Billionaire, not Bruce Wayne his Pseudo-father.

Tim frowns at Bruce’s lack of response and bites at Bruce’s bottom lip. There’s a part of him yelling at him to stop, that this is crazy, but there’s another part of him telling him to keep going. It feels like his heart is gonna beat out of his chest-

Bruce firmly but gently raises an arm and pushes Tim’s shoulder back with his palm. Surprised, Tim stumbles back and that’s when reality hits him like a train and he realizes what he just did. 

He put his mouth on Bruce’s mouth. He kissed Bruce. 

Bruce did not kiss him back. Tim doesn’t know how he feels about that.

Bruce seems lost for words, opening and closing his mouth. Tim is crying at this point, angry tears that track down his cheeks. Bruce just rejected him again, and a part of Tim is so happy that Bruce did, and another part of him is so mad.

He’s not exactly sure why he kissed Bruce, just that he knows that’s the one way Dick or Damian or even Jason would never dare to do to Bruce. It’s something that only Tim could do and with dread but excitement, a heat flares in Tim’s belly. 

“Tim,” Bruce finally says, hesitates, then carries on. “Tim. We can’t do that.”

Tim shakes his head desperately, his hands going up to cover his ears because he can’t. He can’t handle another rejection from Bruce. It’ll kill him, it’ll kill him, it’ll kill him-

(Something isn’t right with him, he’s realizing. He’s so fucked in the head.)

“It’s okay, Tim. It’s okay.” 

Bruce stands and wraps an arm around Tim. He gently maneuvers Tim so that they’re both back to sitting on his bed. Tim lets out a small sob, and he realizes he’s not just crying, but sobbing, big sobs that wrack his body and he’s so humiliated and he hates himself so much, hates Bruce too- 

“It’s okay,” Bruce repeats as he rubs circles into Tim’s back. “You didn’t mean to. It’s okay.”

But Tim had meant too, didn’t he? Had needed to touch Bruce in the way only Tim could touch him, in the way that Dick, Damian, and Jason could never, ever touch Bruce. 

“I did mean too,” Tim sobs, pushing away from Bruce and causing the older man to stumble back just a little. “I love you.”

And Tim doesn’t even know in what way does he love Bruce, because he wants Bruce to be his dad so badly. He wants Bruce to hold him and rub his hair as he tells Tim that he chooses him, not anyone else, that Tim can be Robin again, that Tim matters. He wants Bruce to protect him and keep him safe, and he wants things to go back to normal-

So he doesn’t know why he also wants Bruce to fuck him into the mattress and tell Tim how beautiful he is, and Tim knows that’s wrong, knows that Bruce is his legal dad, knows that his small celebrity crush he had on Bruce as a child somehow got crossed in the wires of his brain when Bruce died, and it’s disgusting and wrong but-

“I love you too, Tim. You’re my son. Why don’t you stay here and we can work this out, okay?”

But Tim just shakes his head and shoves Bruce, shoves him again, until the man is forced to get off the bed before he falls, and Tim shoves him again, keeps shoving him until Bruce is walking backward until he hits the door. “Just go. You clearly made your choice.”

Bruce reaches out a hand to lay it on Tim’s shoulder, but Tim flinches and steps back. Bruce looks like Tim just kicked yet another puppy. (Tim hates that look, but this is all Bruce’s fault, and Dick’s and Damian’s too, it’s all their fault that Bruce just made another choice and Tim-)

“There’s no choice, Tim.” Now Bruce sounds desperate, as if he’s begging Tim to stay, but that doesn’t make sense because Bruce doesn’t beg. “Please Tim, I didn’t make any choice. Stay here, son, and-”

But buy saying he didn’t make a choice, he did make a choice didn’t he? 

“Just go.” Tim rubs at his eyes angrily, mad at himself for letting Bruce see him so weak. “Just go!” Please, Tim wants to say, please stay and choose me. But he knows Bruce won’t so he needs Bruce to leave before Tim completely falls apart in pity and rejection.

So Bruce goes, and Tim collapses on his bed with a cry. Nothing can stop the sobs that wreck his entire body. He wants Bruce to come back so bad, to just hold him and tell him everything will be okay, but everything won’t be okay, and Tim is older enough to know that. 

Because once again, Bruce didn’t choose him.

***

The new apartment really isn’t that bad. It’s in a nicer part of Gotham, not exactly the neighborhood that the manor is, but still nice for Gotham’s standards and it’s only ten minutes from where Tim grew up so at least Tim is familiar with it. It’s also in Red Robin’s territory, so there’s no conflict of issue, either.

At least it’ll help Tim get better used to his new route. 

Tim’s new apartment is nice, with modern furniture and an open floor plan save for the bedroom, study, and bathroom. There’s plenty of natural lighting, and there’s every bit of furniture a guy could need, so Tim only has to go grocery shopping. It’s the perfect place for a CEO. 

It’s not home, but Tim really thinks he can start over here. He could be Red Robin and come home to this place. He could hang out with his friends here, can imagine Kon and Cassie arguing over the TV while Bart makes snacks. He can imagine Steph and him talking on the roof just like they used to.

It’s not home. 

But well, it’s the best Tim is going to have. Bruce has made that crystal clear. 

Tim hums as he unloads the grocery bags. It’s not much, just coffee beans and some things for sandwiches, but Alfred had sent him off with enough frozen food to last months, so Tim’s not too concerned. As long as he has his coffee, he’ll be just fine. 

He’ll be just fine. That’s what he has to tell himself, because if he allows himself to actually think about anything, well-.

It’s best not to think about it. 

When the last of the groceries are unloaded, Tim takes a few snapchats of the apartment before sending them off to Steph. He’s quite proud of the apartment, especially since he managed to get everything moved in and done in just two days. Yes, there really wasn’t much to unload, but Tim still did it by himself and he’s so proud. 

‘Love it’ Steph snaps back over a picture of her face, her tongue sticking out. ‘Can’t wait to see it in person!’ She sends a little heart and Tim is just so glad she’s back.

He’s about to snap back when his phone rings. He freezes when he sees Dick’s name. 

Tim’s relationship with Dick is just as complicated as it is with Bruce. Tim misses Dick, but he misses the old Dick. Now, it’s like he misses a ghost. 

He almost doesn’t answer it. But there’s something in there that longs for Dick the way he longs for Bruce so Tim swallows and answers. “Hello?” 

He is a bit curious, after all, about what Dick could possibly want. Help with a case? It’s a possibility. They haven’t talked in a long time, not sense- Well. It’s been awhile. 

“Tim,” Dick breathes into the phone on the other side, as if he’s shocked that Tim picked up. 

Tim sighs and sits down on his couch. He rubs a hand over his face. He’s so tired and he really doesn’t have the energy to deal with Dick right now. Not unless Dick was ready to apologize. “What do you want, Dick?”

“Bruce told me you moved out.” 

That’s Dick for you. Straight to point, but somehow also beating around the bush of what he actually wants to say. 

Tim frowns. It really wasn’t any of Dick’s business. Bruce shouldn’t have told him, but Tim supposes there really isn’t a good reason as to why Dick can't know. It just irritates him for no reason. 

“Yes, I did.” 

“But . . why, Timmy?”

Dick really is just like Bruce. Smart, but also so unable to acknowledge and accept feelings to the point that it makes them so dumb. Tim’s like that, too. Steph calls them all emotionally constipated. She’s not wrong. 

“Because I wanted to,” Tim snaps, suddenly not in the mood to deal with Dick. His day started off so good, and now his mood is plummeting. “Because I couldn’t stay there any longer.”

Dick seems to be at a loss for words, and though Tim can’t see him, he can imagine Dick biting his lip and mouthing the words he’s trying to put together. They’re really not good with feelings, but at least Bruce usually knows what he needs to say. To an extent. He wasn’t so good when Tim kissed him. 

“I know you and Damian don’t get along, but he’s your brother Tim. I”m sure you guys can work it out, but you can’t do that if you don’t go back home.”

A familiar feeling of anger swirls inside Tim, the kind he felt right before he impulsively told everyone he was moving out, and then he did. “We don’t just get along, Dick,” Tim says coolly into the phone. “He tried to kill me. We aren’t brothers. And neither are we.”

“Tim-”

“You chose him,” Tim says with a sudden rush of honesty he wasn’t expecting. His eyes are wet. “You chose him, Dick and so did Bruce. You took Robin away from me. You stopped caring about me, so you don’t get to act like my brother. Not anymore.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, but he’s glad he did. He wants Dick to understand. 

Dick is silent on the other line and Tim almost hangs up when Dick finally responds, “Damian needed to be Robin, Tim,” and Tim’s stomach drops because here it comes again, “but you’re still my brother. We can work this out.”

So there it is. Tim angrily rubs at his eyes. It wasn’t fair. “You asked me why I moved out. I answered you. If you don’t like my answer, then that’s your fault, Dick.”

“Tim, please,” but Tim’s already hanging up his phone. His family is smart. They have to know how much Tim is hurting and why, but they’re not willing to fix it. To Tim it speaks volume. Damian means more to them than Tim, so they can’t, they won’t fix what they need to with Tim. 

Tim feels like it’s the final nail in the coffin.

***

They give Tim time. They call him, but he doesn’t answer. He works with Bruce at work because he has to, but he’s professional and cool in his answers. Bruce is not his dad, his actions say. Bruce is just someone he answers too. 

Their nighttime crime fighting complicates things a bit. He can’t avoid them completely, but on the nights he has to work with any of them, he focuses on the tasks and gets the job done. 

They fall into a system. Bruce will ask how he’s doing at work, and Tim will say that he's doing just fine. Bruce will hesitate, like he wants to say more, maybe even ask Tim to come back, but he never does. At night, Red Robin works with Batman to capture A list villains, and sometimes in cases that require detective work. Batman never asks how Red Robin is doing.

Alfred visits occasionally and Tim looks forward to these visits, because Tim may have left Bruce but he never left Alfred. Alfred brings dishes and chastises Tim’s lack of groceries, but also makes sure Tim has enough blankets and toothpaste, too. 

He also unashamedly will ask Tim to come back every time. One night, about two weeks after Dick’s phone call, he tells Tim that Bruce misses him. 

“Did he tell you?” Tim asks. 

“Not through his words, no. But you know how your father is.”

“If Bruce misses me,” he tells Alfred, “he can tell me himself.” 

And two days later Bruce stands at Tim’s doorstep, looking almost sheepish. “Hello,” he says. 

Tim bites his lip, because boy, does Alfred play dirty. “What are you doing here,” Tim asks, careful to hide any emotion in his voice. 

Bruce clears his throat and Tim realizes that he is uncomfortable. He’s out of sorts. It’s not something Tim is used to seeing. 

“Can I come in?”

Tim almost wants to say no, but seeing Bruce in person for the first time in weeks has Tim realizing how much he has missed Bruce. He hates that he misses him but he can’t ignore how much he wants Bruce’s attention. (He’s not sure what kind of attention.)

“Fine.” Tim steps back and allows Bruce to enter. 

The older man takes a quick look around at Tim’s apartment, taking in the barely used furniture, the empty kitchen, the scattered coffee cups and mugs. Tim’s good at reading people, but not as good as Bruce, and not for the first time does Tim wish that he had superpowers that would allow him to read Bruce’s mind.

“It’s nice,” Bruce says, and it sounds honest. 

Tim nods and closes the door behind them. “What are you doing here?” 

Bruce seems hesitant again, but he steels forward because he’s Bruce. “I wanted to see how you’re doing,” he says truthfully. “Are you doing okay?”

“You came all the way here to ask me how I”m doing?” Tim demands, and what he doesn’t ask is, “Do you miss me?” 

“You won’t answer my calls.” 

“I’ve been busy.”

“Tim,” Bruce sighs and once again Tim is shocked with how old he looks, “can we please talk.”

“We are talking,” Tim answers dryly.

Where was Bruce wanting to talk when he came back and saw that Tim was no longer Robin? He hadn’t wanted to talk then. He hadn’t wanted to listen to how Tim felt about not being Robin anymore. Bruce hadn’t wanted to talk when Tim told him about the hell year he had when Bruce was lost. 

Bruce had never wanted to talk, so why now. 

Something must show in Tim’s face because Bruce sighs again. “This isn’t going how I wanted it too.” 

“Does that bother you,” Tim starts, aware he’s playing with fire, “that something is finally not going your way?” 

Bruce frowns, but he doesn’t move. He just keeps staring at Tim as if he doesn’t know who Tim is anymore, which is fine because Tim isn’t sure who Bruce is, either. He’s certainly not the same guy who legally adopted him. Maybe being lost in time and space changes a person.

“Can you please try here?” Bruce seems frustrated, and Tim huffs but sits down on the couch. “Can you just be honest with me, Tim? I do miss you, and I want you to come home.” 

Tim picks up the TV remote and turns on the TV, trying to appear as if he’s bored with the conversation. He shrugs and starts flicking through the channels. He’s happy Bruce said it, he’s happy that Bruce misses him. But that doesn’t mean he can drop everything and just go back. 

“This is my home, Bruce.”

Bruce sighs again, something he seems to do a lot in front of Tim, and sits down next to Tim on the couch. “Why? Why is this your home.”

Bruce is so close that Tim can smell his aftershave. It smells really good and Tim scoots just a bit closer to the edge of the couch. If Bruce notices it, he doesn’t mention it. 

“No one tries to kill me here,” Tim answers with a shrug and settles on some drama reality show. The volume is so low Tim can’t even hear what they’re saying, but he keeps his eyes on the TV anyway. He doesn’t want to look at Bruce. 

“I've talked with Damian,” Bruce says, and Tim spins around so fast to look at Bruce that it almost gives him whiplash. He wasn’t expecting that. It must show in Bruce’s face, because he adds, “I told him that you’re my son just as much as he is, and his behavior is inexcusable. When you come back, I promise you Damian will be on better behavior.”

When. As if Tim is so sure that he’s going to come back. Tim doesn’t know how to feel. On one hand, he’s glad Bruce talked to Damian, but he highly doubts one talk with the demon brat will change anything. 

On the other hand, a part of Tim preens, because Bruce has said that Tim was his son just as much as Damian was. All Tim wants is Bruce’s approval, he still does now even years later.

And a small, disgusting, dark part of Tim feels disappointed, because Bruce sees Tim as a son, which is disgusting because that’s what Tim wants, so why does he feel so rejected to hear those words-

Tim clears his throat and turns back to the TV, careful not to look at Bruce. “I appreciate that, Bruce.” He sighs himself, because things are just so complicated now. “But this is my home now.”

“Tim.” Bruce’s voice is stern but Tim keeps his eyes glued to the TV. “Can you please look at me?” 

Biting his lip, Tim tries to keep his eyes to the TV but fails and turns to Bruce. He’s met with icy eyes that, while stern, seem almost desperate. “What is it going to take for you to talk to me? For me to get you home?”

The question bubbles up something inside of Tim. He feels himself swallow, and the all too familiar roaring of blood pounds his ears. “You really want to know?” And he doesn’t even wait for Bruce to nod before Tim is continuing on, though something inside of him is telling him to stop, “You weren’t there. You weren’t there, and Dick was, and Dick took everything from me, and called me crazy. He said you were dead and that I needed to move on. But I didn’t, I knew you were alive, and-and when you came back, I thought you’d fix everything.”

Tim swallows, trying to hold back tears because he won’t cry in front of Bruce again. “But you didn’t fix anything. You didn’t even care that I was the only one who thought you weren’t dead. You came back and things stayed the same! You let Damian stay Robin, and you didn’t care how much that hurt me but I know you knew. You knew it hurt me and you didn’t care.” Tim looks into Bruce's own shocked eyes before he finishes, “You stopped caring about me, because I’m not your son, am I? I’m not.”

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, maybe for Bruce to tell him that he’s wrong, that he does care about him. 

He’s not expecting Bruce to grab him-and Tim flinches, but they both ignore it- and wrap his arms around Tim. The hug is so tight, their chests together, and with the height difference it’s easy for Bruce to get Tim’s head into the crook of his shoulder and rest his own head on top of Tim’s.

They have never hugged like this before but god, does it send shivers down Tim’s spine. 

“Tim,” Bruce says and Tim almost shivers again, “I have never stopped caring about you.”

Bruce is so warm and strong against Tim, and so many emotions are flying through his body, and Tim realizes that he’s hard. 

It’s wrong and it’s disgusting, but Bruce is so warm, and he feels so loved for the first time in over a year, and Bruce is squeezing him like he’s afraid he’s going to lose Tim and it’s all Tim has ever wanted. 

The not really a kiss comes back to Tim’s mind and he shudders remembering the way Tim’s lips slanted over Bruce’s, and how soft they were, and Tim shudders again, feels his cock twitch, and he pulls his head back to search Bruce’s face. 

“You care about me?” Tim asks softly, but the grip he has on Bruce is strong and tight, as if he scares Bruce is going to pull away and leave him again, and though that’s what he thought he wanted, he realizes how could he ever want that? How could he ever want Bruce to leave?

There’s something in Bruce’s face, like he’s begging Tim not to do what Tim is about to do next, but they both know Tim’s going to do it. 

And he does. Tim kisses Bruce again. 

It’s different this time. Tim can taste Bruce, (he tastes like mint), can smell his aftershave, can feel his chest against his own and it’s so intoxicating. 

Like last time, Bruce does not kiss Tim back, but he doesn’t push Tim back either. He just turns his head so that their lips disconnect, and while he keeps his tight grip on Tim, he says in a soft but firm voice, “Tim. We can’t do that.” 

It’s like he doesn’t want to hurt Tim with another rejection, but he needs Tim to see how wrong this is. A flush hits Tim’s cheeks and he breathes, desperate for air, but he shakes his head. “Why?” he demands. “You said you care about me.”

“I do,” Bruce answers with a nod, and Tim can see his pupils, wide and almost blown, “I do care about you Tim.” He shifts gently and Tim realizes he can probably feel Tim’s erection, hard and pressing against his belly. “But you’re my son and this is wrong.”

Tim starts to shake his head, almost desperate for Bruce to understand, to not reject him one more time. No no no no. “I want this,” Tim manages to rasp out, his voice desperate to his own ears. “Please, Bruce, please, I want you to care about me-”

“Tim, please.” And Bruce’s voice seems desperate now too. “Please Tim, I do, but we can’t do this-”

“No no no no.” Tim shakes his head, and suddenly desperate for Bruce to understand, pushes his chest closer to Bruce, feels his stomach touch the older man’s, feels his erection hit Bruce’s thigh-

Bruce shoots out with his arms and grips Tim’s shoulder to keep him from moving any more than he already has. “Why? Why do you want this?” To anyone else it could come off rude, as if he’s disgusted with Tim, but Tim knows better. Bruce is confused and trying to desperately regain control of a situation that he doesn’t know how it got away from him. 

“I love you,” Tim gasps out, and he needs to make Bruce understand. “I want you to love me back in the way you can’t love Damian or Dick or even Jason. This,” he gaps, needing air, and he’s so aroused, “this is the only way I can have you. Please Bruce please, please, please.”

He pushes back against Bruce’s front, desperate for Bruce to see him, to understand, so he grabs one hand and Bruce closes his eyes but allows Tim to lead his hand until it touches his erection through his pants, but Bruce growls and snatches his hand away. 

“Tim, please. Please listen to me-”

“Listen to me,” Tim demands back and nuzzles Bruce’s neck to plant a kiss on the taught skin there, “I want this, I want this so bad, please, I need this.”

Tim can feel Bruce’s pulse, can feel the other man’s racing heart beat, and with a sudden realization, he knows Bruce is half hard against him, too, so Tim kisses his neck again, sucks just a bit before Bruce gently pries him off again. 

Up close, Tim can see the other man’s eyes again, and this time the pupils are completely blown, and Bruce’s mouth is open just a bit and he’s panting, and he has to be a little aroused, has to be, but he stops Tim again, desperately shaking his own head. 

He’s losing control and he’s desperately trying to regain it, but he’s half hard against Tim and it sends fire throughout Tim’s body and his cock twitches again.

“You need this?” the older man rasps and Tim nods desperately, trying to maintain eye contact with the older man, to make him see. 

“Yes, yes, yes, I need this. Bruce please, please.” He leans up and kisses Bruce’s jaw, tries to get his mouth again but Bruce jerks his head back, but his fingers tighten on Tim’s shoulders and Tim hadn’t even realized Bruce was still gripping them. 

“You need this?” the older man demands again, and they keep eye contact, but Bruce seems to be searching Tim’s face, looking for something, and Tim doesn’t know what he’s looking for but he nods. 

“Yes, yes, please fuck me, yes-”

Bruce’s hand comes up and quickly slams itself over Tim’s mouth, desperate to stop him, but it’s too late, he heard what Tim said and Tim can feel Bruce’s own erection against him, now fully hard.

“If I do this,” Bruce all but growls, but he pants just a bit, “you’ll come home?”

Tim licks Bruce hand, and Bruce flinches and quickly draws it back, leaving Tim’s mouth free to beg, “Yes! Yes, I promise, Bruce, please. I need-”

“If this is what you need from me, Tim,” Bruce says softly, like he’s already regretting everything. 

“Yes, I-”

Bruce cuts him off by finally (finally) pressing his lips back to Tim’s. 

It’s not how Tim had imagined it all those years ago as he laid in his bed in the Drake home, his mouth pressed tight together to keep himself quiet, his hips thrusting into the air as Tim jerked himself off, Brucie Wayne smiling at him in his mind. 

In his mind, Brucie is gentle but demanding as he kisses Tim. 

In the present, Bruce seems almost desperate as he kisses Tim. He curls one hand into Tim’s hair, bringing their mouths closer together, and he yanks, just a bit, but it’s enough for Tim to gasp into the kiss, allowing Bruce’s tongue to caress over Tim’s.

It’s so different from before. Bruce seems determined to see this through, determined to do whatever he needs to do to bring Tim home, and Tim wants Bruce so bad. 

Bruce’s tongue prods Tim’s mouth, running over his teeth, the roof of his mouth, all the way tugging at Tim’s hair and Tim can’t quite keep up, all but gasping into Bruce’s mouth as he desperately tries to kiss Bruce back. 

Bruce pulls back and Tim’s gasps, sucks in much needed air, and gazes up at Bruce as if Bruce just walked on water. (In Tim’s mind, he practically had.) A thin string of saliva still connects their lips and Tim goes back in for another kiss, but Bruce stops him again. 

“Okay?” he asks, and Tim nods. 

“Yes, of course, please, fuck me-”

“Please stop saying that,” Bruce whispers, and Tim whines so Bruce shakes his head again, “I can’t do that-”

“You can,” Tim interrupts. “I need it, I want it so bad, please, please.” This time, when Tim reaches out his own hand and rests it against Bruce’s clothed erection, Bruce doesn’t stop him. 

The older man just shudders but he leans in to kiss Tim’s own neck. “Okay,” he says against the skin. “Okay, but we do it my way, okay?”

“Yes, yes that’s fine.” Tim palms Bruce’s erection, and Bruce makes a sound in the back of his throat, hot and needy, but despite it he gently tugs Tim’s hands okay. 

“Just slow down,” Bruce whispers. “Okay, where’s your bedroom?”

This is really happening, Tim thinks as Tim all but runs to the room, Bruce trailing behind him. Bruce wants him, wants Tim in the way he can’t want anyone else and it sends so much need through Tim. He’s so hard . . . 

Now in the bedroom, Tim all but throws himself on the bed, but manages to get his body in a good position, his head resting on the pillows and he’s glad he actually made his bed today. Bruce stands at the foot of the bed, and for one horrified second Tim thinks he’s gonna leave, but he doesn’t. 

He climbs on top of Tim and slants his body over Tim’s much smaller one. At this new angle, he can feel every part of Bruce and god it’s happening, it’s really happening. 

For a second they just stare at each other, and maybe this is where Tim should be having doubts but he wants this so bad and there’s no way he can stop now.

As if realizing that, Bruce sighs and kisses Tim’s forehead. His large hands find’s Tim’s waist and slowly start to slide up Tim’s side, underneath his shirt. 

Tim moans and arches his back, and desperate to feel all of Bruce, he grabs his own shirt and hurriedly takes it off. Bruce doesn’t help, but he doesn’t stop Tim when he starts to tug off his jeans too, leaving Tim in his boxers briefs. 

A soft of panic hits Bruce’s eyes, and Tim thinks maybe this is where Bruce will call it quits but he doesn’t. He doesn't stop Tim from yanking on his shirt, from grabbing it and pulling it over Bruce’s head, exposing his scarred chest. 

Tim runs his hands over Bruce’s shoulders, and he’s hit with how big Bruce is. Tim’s seen Bruce without a shirt on before, but it’s so different with Bruce laying over him, and Tim realizes that Bruce is so big, he could crush Tim and it should scare him but it doesn’t. Bruce won’t hurt him, Tim is sure of it. 

It only makes him more aroused and suddenly desperate for things to start again, he unbuttons Bruce’s pants. Or, at least he tries to but that’s when Bruce finally stops him.

“Wait,” the older man says in that lower, growl-like voice and Tim does, staying still and silent, as if scared that one wrong word will send Bruce flying. 

Bruce closes his eyes but he doesn’t get off Tim. He takes in a few wild, panic breaths before he opens his eyes again and then he nods, more to himself than to Tim, and takes off his pants. Clad in only their underwear, they both freeze. 

Bruce leans down and kisses Tim’s neck again. “Do you have lube?” he whispers into Tim’s ear.

Tim closes his eyes and whimpers. He can’t speak right now, so he just points to the nightstand. Bruce nods and lowers himself more onto Tim, suddenly pressing all his weight on the younger man so that he can open the nightstand with one hand. 

Bruce is hard, and with nothing but their thin underwear between them, their cocks rub together and Tim moans, loudly then, and he can feel Bruce’s own cock twitch, but the man is determined. He manages to grab the bottle of lube, it’s already half way empty but there’s enough in it. If he comes across Tim’s sex toys, he doesn’t mention it. 

With the lube in hand, Bruce sits back on his knees, and Tim whines at the lack of contact, but suddenly confident, he sits up as well and reaches for Bruce’s boxers. Bruce doesn’t stop him, just closes his eyes and looks up to the ceiling, as if he’s asking for God to intervene and stop this, but nothing happens. 

Tim yanks down Bruce’s boxers and his cock springs free, big and thicker than Tim could ever have imagined. It sends shivers down Tim’s spine at the thought of it inside of him and suddenly an idea goes through his mind. 

“Can I blow you?” Tim asks, desperately reaching for the cock in question. 

“No.” And this time he does growl and Tim flinches back in shock, and Bruce must see the hurt expression on his face because he sighs and grabs Tim’s hand. “Like this, okay?” With one hand, he slicks up his own dick with lube, and with the other, he guides Tim's own hand until Tim touches the velvet skin. 

They both moan, though Bruce immediately shuts his mouth afterwards, embarrassed he let Tim see just how turn on he actually is. 

It’s stickier than Tim imagined, but not too different from Tim’s own dick. Bruce’s cock is nice and thick and Tim’s mouth actually waters, wanting to taste it so bad, but he lets his hand fist Bruce’s cock and gives it a hesitant jerk. 

Bruce groans and Tim does it again, suddenly with a rush of confidence that doesn’t even seem fake. He uses his thumb to circle the head, and wants to desperately lick away the bead of precum, but he knows Bruce doesn’t want that so he doesn’t. He spreads it around instead, mixes it with the lube until Bruce’s cock is sticky and hard and pulsing in his hand. 

Tim sneaks a peak at the other man and is glad to see that Bruce is biting his lip, panting softly as his eyes watch Tim jerk him off. He’s enjoying this, Tim thinks, and his own dick shoots a bead of precum itself. He needs Bruce inside of him now. 

“Touch me,” Tim begs in a low whisper and Bruce nods, and lays them back down. The movement causes Tim to let go of Bruce, to which he whines, but Bruce placates him by kissing him once again. 

He’s so distracted by the kiss, of their lips together, of the feel of Bruce’s tongue in his mouth, that he misses Bruce dipping his fingers into the lube again, and his entire body almost flies off the bed when Bruce finally slips off Tim’s underwear and touches his cock. 

“Ohhhh,” Tim moans, nice and low in his throat and Bruce puffs out a small laugh. The touch is so much different than anything Tim has ever done to himself. 

“That’s it,” Bruce murmurs against Tim’s mouth. “Good boy.” Tim whines, his eyes squeezed shut and Bruce says, “It’s okay. I got you, baby bird. I got you.”

“Please,” Tim begs, “more. I need more.” 

Bruce hesitates, his hand stilling on Tim’s cock and he bites Tim’s lower lip before breaking the kiss and nodding. “Are you sure that this is what you want, Tim?”

“Yes,” Tim all but sobs. “Yes, fuck me. I need you.” 

Bruce looks up at the ceiling again, like he really is asking God for help, but that’s ridiculous. He breathes out harshly but nods again, and suddenly his hand disappears and Tim’s mind short circuits because-

“Oh.” 

Bruce pushes a finger inside of him, slow and gentle, and Tim’s done this to himself plenty of times but absolutely nothing could have compared him for the feel of another man’s finger inside of him instead.

It’s, god, it’s amazing, the way Bruce’s finger curls inside of him, up to the knuckle, and searches for that spot inside of him. Oh, it’s so good, and Tim pants, feels his hair starting to stick to his forehead. 

“Okay?” Bruce asks and Tim nods. 

“More.” 

Bruce bites his lip but nods, adds more lube to his fingers and curls a second finger inside of Tim. There’s a light sting, but Tim ignores it, instead focusing on the pleasure, of the way his balls are starting to tighten, and god, it’s so good-

“OH!” Tim shouts as Bruce’s two fingers manage to press against his prostate, and Tim wasn’t expecting that. “Ngh,” he moans, his brain starting to melt and Bruce smiles just a bit at that. 

“Good?” 

“Yesssss. Yes, so good, oh my god.” Tim’s never had sex before, had only ever messed around a bit with Steph, but he never imagined himself as a talker, but he’s starting to babble as Bruce continues to fuck Tim with his fingers, scissoring them and stretching him open. 

“Yes, uh, ngh, so good,” Tim continues to babbles then shouts as Bruce pushes in a third finger, and that time it really does sting and Tim whimpers but Bruce kisses Tim, pushing his tongue inside of his mouth as Bruce adds more lube and curls his three fingers against his prostate. 

Tim comes. 

Waves of blinding white hot pleasure rolls through Tim as his cock spurts across both of their stomachs and chests, even managing to land a spurt against Tim’s chin, and Tim moans as his ass clenches against Bruce’s fingers and his tongue reaches up to lick away his own come.

“Shh.” Bruce peppers small kisses against Tim’s neck, sucking and biting as Tim’s vision goes white and his dick shudders. Tim’s mouth open, strings of saliva against his lips but Bruce shushes him again. “It’s okay, I got you baby bird. I got you, shh.”

Tim whimpers as the aftershocks rolls through and shudders as his dick gives a final twitch before he lies back on the bed, spent. He closes his eyes, sucks in a breath, and when he finally opens them again, Bruce is leaning over him, concerned in his eyes. 

“Okay?” he asks, as if he’s truly worried he really did hurt Tim. 

“Perfect,” Tim answers and kisses Bruce again. Bruce won’t hurt him.

Bruce is still hard against Tim’s hip, and he blindly reaches down to curl his hand against him. Bruce flinches but he doesn’t push Tim away and Tim breaks the kiss to beg, “Please, please let me blow you. I promise it’ll be so good.” Which is a promise Tim shouldn’t make because he’s never had a dick in his mouth before but Bruce is so hard and dripping against his hip and Tim wants him in his mouth so bad.

Bruce shudders against Tim but he sits back on his knees and he hesitates before he nods and that’s all Tim needs before he flattens himself on his stomach and licks the tip of the cock.

“Fuck,” Bruce whimpers and encouraged, Tim swirls his tongue around the head and takes more into his mouth. It tastes sort of musky and salty, but it’s not a bad taste, and even though he just came, Tim can feel his own cock getting hard again. 

He moans and it sends vibrations across Bruce’s cock, and the older man can’t help but push more into Tim’s mouth. Tim happily takes it, hollowing his cheeks the way he’s seen in porn and sucking. He only has half of it in his mouth before Bruce jerks himself back. 

“Enough.”

It’s a shame because Bruce really does have a big cock and Tim wouldn't mind having it down his throat while he gags and drools around it, but maybe for another time. He needs Bruce inside of him so badly. 

Tim lies back down on his back, the cock slipping out of his mouth, but Bruce stays on his knees on his bead, chest heaving heavily. He glances back down at Tim and his eyes darken. “Condom?”

Tim points to the nightstand, suddenly so glad he likes to put condoms on his toys because it makes for easier clean up. Bruce coughs, closes his eyes, but he opens the nightstand and grabs the condom, and though Tim knows he’s trying to play cool, a part of him must want this badly because he hurriedly rips open the condom to shove it onto his dick. 

Tim’s hard again, and the thought of having Bruce, Bruce fucking Wayne inside of him makes his head spin. Bruce is so much bigger than Tim and it’s so hot . . . 

“Um.” And now Bruce looks unsure even as his dick is twitching inside the condom. Tim just knows Bruce wants to fuck him too, so he doesn’t understand why he’s hesitating. “Have you-uh. Have you ever-”

“No,” Tim answers honestly and Bruce freezes. “But it’s okay,” Tim rushes to say, and grabs Bruce’s wrists as the man starts to pull back. “It’s okay, I want this so badly.”

“I can’t-” 

“You can, please. Please. I want this so badly.”

Bruce looks like he might cry as he glances down at Tim and Tim honestly expects Bruce to finally realize what they’re doing and leave. But he doesn’t. 

Bruce just nods and Tim releases his wrist. “Okay. Okay. I”ll be gentle.” The last part is more said to himself than Tim but Tim can’t even process it because Bruce flattens himself against Tim, grabs his knees apart, and then suddenly the tip of his cock is against Tim’s hole-

And Tim tenses, nervous, but Bruce whispers in his ear, “It’s okay, I got you,” and Bruce’s got him, he won’t ever hurt Tim again, so Tim nods and Bruce licks into his mouth and Tim sighs. 

It’s enough for Bruce to inch inside. 

Tim has had enough things inside of him before, but it’s nothing compared to the thickness and length of Bruce’s cock. It stings and Bruce isn’t giving Tim time to adjust before shoving more inches inside of him, so Tim pants out, “Ah, gentle-”

“Shh, I got you.” And Bruce tries to be gentle, but Tim is wet and tight around him, and he’s only a man, and his hips snap against Tim without meaning too and Tim cries out in a mixture of pain and pleasure. 

It surprises Tim because Bruce is kind of known for his extreme self control but it looks like Bruce has lost all control as he snaps his hips into Tim without giving him any time to adjust. 

“Ahhhh,” Tim moans and he’s not sure if he wants to push Bruce off him or get him closer. “Wait,” he begs again and this time Bruce cringes but stills his hips and gives Tim enough time to breathe. It’s more of a pant really, but Bruce doesn’t comment on it. 

Tim feels so full. It’s nothing he has ever experienced before and he clenches without meaning to on Bruce’s cock, which he regrets a second later as Bruce starts to snap his hips again. They both cry out, and Bruce uses that as an excuse to kiss Tim again. As someone who seemed repulsed the first time Tim kissed him, he sure seems to like kissing Tim now. 

Bruce sets the rhythm, hard and rough and nothing like the gentle Tim had expected. He doesn’t . . . hate it, but he’s not sure he likes it either but he’s so scared of saying something that would set Bruce off. He did say they were going to do it his way and that’s fine. He just wants Bruce, even if he wishes they’d just slow down just a bit-

“Oh!” 

With a snap of his hips, Bruce’s cock brushes against Tim’s prostate and Tim cries out again. “There! Yes, ngh, do it again, oh my god.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything, just thrusts quick and faster inside of Tim, and again, maybe Tim would like him to be gentle, but it feels good either way, feels fucking amazing and Tim doesn’t think he’s gonna last much longer. Bruce seems to be the same way, because he makes an uneven thrust and they both cry out. 

“Fuck,” Bruce moans, and sucks a hickey into Tim’s neck. Tim never saw Bruce as a hickey guy, but fuck does it feel amazing, physically and emotionally. Bruce is marking him, claiming him. 

Choosing him . . . 

“‘M gonna come,” Tim manages to gasp out. Bruce is ruthless, slamming into Tim and Tim can only grip the sheets and arch his back. 

“Not yet,” Bruce growls and Tim blinks in surprise. (In the back of his mind, he wished he’d have told Bruce he didn’t want harsh, cruel. He wants kind and gentle and to be loved by Bruce, but this is okay too, Tim guesses.)

“But-”

Bruce wraps a hand in Tim’s hair and pulls, not enough to yank his head back but enough to make Tim yelp. “Not yet.” He makes another thrust and Tim ass clenches. 

“Please,” he cries out, nearly yelping as Bruce thrusts his body up the mattress and almost sends his head flying through the headboard. “‘M so close-”

“No, baby bird.” 

Tim doesn’t understand why Bruce is being so mean but Bruce is fucking him so nicely and his balls feel so tight, like they could shoot any minute. His dick is already leaking precum, and fuck he’s close, and he just wants Bruce to love him, to make him feel safe-

“Daddy,” Tim sobs and Bruce hips stutter. 

Tim stills too. He . . . hadn’t meant to say that. It was never like he was attracted to Bruce because he was his adoptive dad. It wasn’t like that. He was attractive to Bruce because he’s Bruce Wayne. He’s Batman.

“Sorry,” Tim mutters, his heart sinking as he realizing that he just ruined this entire thing-

Bruce groans, pulls his cock completely out and thrusts it back into Tim. “If that’s what you need from me,” he pants into Tim’s ear, and he starts the rhythm thrusts again.

Tim wants to explain that he doesn’t, that that’s not what he needed and he doesn’t know why he said it, but Bruce grabs Tim’s hips hard enough to bruise and Tim yelps as Bruce’s cock stabs that spot inside of him again.

“Yes,” Tim lies, (he wants to stop) and he arches his back again, allows Bruce’s cock to go deeper. “Yes, Daddy.” 

“Baby bird,” Bruce groans and Tim does love that nickname, had pretended to act embarrassed about it when he was a kid, but it’s so endearing and special to him. 

The new rhythm Bruce sets is even harder than before, and it hurts but it feels so good. Bruce keeps sucking at his neck while yanking his hair and his cock is hitting all the perfect spots in him.

Tim never wants it to stop (he wants it to stop). 

“Daddy,” he babbles one last time. 

Bruce moans, yanks Tim’s hair again and he says, “I love you, Tim,” before kissing Tim one last time. 

This time when he comes, he can feel Bruce coming with him, too. 

Utterly spent, they lay on Tim’s bed and both try to catch their breath. Tim doesn't risk looking at Bruce because he’s not sure what he’ll find on the other man’s face. Regret, surely. Maybe disappointment in Tim? Tim can’t bear to look. 

He doesn’t have to. Bruce gently cradles Tim’s jaw and turns his head so that Tim is forced to look at him. “You’re coming home?” he asks. (They only did this because Bruce would do anything to bring Tim home.)

Tim hesitates but he nods, closes his eyes, and just focuses on the feeling of Bruce touching him. “I-yeah. Yeah, I’ll come home.” He won’t come back permanently, but he’ll make the effort to split his time at the manor. (He told Bruce he would.)

Bruce nods and gets up. Neither of them say anything as Bruce gets dressed. Tim is suddenly so tired despite it being in the middle of the afternoon. 

“Come home, tomorrow,” Bruce tells Tim, right before he leaves. He smiles at Tim, but Tim can tell it’s forced. Bruce looks like he might throw up. “We’ll even go out and patrol together, okay?” At Tim’s look, he rushes to say, “Just you and me, okay? Like old times.” 

And Tim can’t say no to that, so he nods, and Bruce leaves. Tim sleeps for two hours. He’ll panic when he wakes up, but for now he’s exhausted.

***

Tim does go home, but not permanently. He keeps his apartment but splits his time. Alfred is absolutely ecstatic to have Tim back, and prepares his favorite foods on the days Tim sleeps over. He doesn’t even comment when Tim ignores the food for coffee, either. 

Damian is not excited to have Tim back, but at least he keeps his comments to himself. He glares and scoffs at Tim but he doesn’t say much when Tim stays in a manor. 

Tim is home, just like he’d told Bruce he would. True to his world, they even go out together as Batman and Red Robin. Damian throws a fit, which Tim thinks is ridiculous because the kid is much too old to do so, and Bruce goes out with him plenty of times still, too. 

The point is that Tim is home.


	2. Hallucinations of the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce wouldn’t ever hurt him. He wouldn’t. He’s loving Tim this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter is very dark. There’s dreams and hallucinations of sexual assault. This kind of thing is only really in this chapter and NONE of it is real, but the rest of this fic will still be dark. You can skip this chapter, but I warn skipping this entire fic if you don’t like dark. However, there will be NO actual sexual assault taking place in this story. Anything outside of dreams and hallucinations will be 100% consensual, even if it may be toxic and/or unhealthy. Also, while Tim’s age is never specified, he’s at least 18, so no underage.

“On your left, Red Robin,” Batman’s harsh voice echoes into Tim’s com. 

Tim swears but manages to dodge a punch that surely would have given him a bloody nose had it not been for Batman’s warning. Okay, these guys, in Tim’s honest opinion, needed to chill. These guys were starting to get on Tim’s nerves. They were a wannabe gang, but no name yet, or any idea what they were doing. Tim thinks that they should have figured that out before they went out, but hey, who was Tim to judge?

A kick is aimed at Tim’s crotch. He’s wearing a cup, but he still yelps in surprise and manges to twist his body, and his attacker kicks air. It gives Tim the opportunity to aim a kick to the man’s middle section and the dude crumbles. It’s what he deserves after all. Tim likes his penis. He’d prefer it if it stayed in tack, thank you very much.

There’s no more members as far as Tim can see. He takes a minute to rest and catch his breath, glancing up when he hears the rush of a cape through air. Batman stands in front of him and nods. “That was the last of them.” 

Batman’s eyes quickly scans over Tim’s body, looking for any injuries. It’s a normal thing to do, something he’s always done, but Tim’s stomach twists up, and he can’t tell if it’s arousal or (fear) something else.

“Let’s tie the rest of them up before the police get here,” Tim tells Batman. He starts to walk toward the man who tried to destroy Tim’s poor penis when Batman stills him with a hand on his shoulder. 

Tim’s stomach drops. 

He turns around to face the man, a question on his face. Batman’s face is impossible to read, which is a good thing most days, and a curse on the others. “Red Robin.”

Tim licks his lip nervously. “Yeah?” 

“Get on your knees, Tim.” 

A few things are wrong here. Tim, the organized bastard that he is, makes a list. One, Batman never uses real names in the field, and especially near people who could hear. The men around them are unconscious, but you never take the list. 

Two, and he’ll only realize this when he awakes later, is that Batman’s eyes are red, which Dream Tim doesn’t realize. 

Three, Batman is asking him to get on his knees. He’s never asked that before, and Tim can’t understand why. 

“What? Why?” Tim asks, but his heart starts to beat erratically in his chest and he thinks he knows why. 

“On your knees,” is all Batman says and when Tim doesn’t comply, Batman grabs his shoulders and pushes Tim onto his knees himself. 

Tim yelps and his hands come down on the harsh concrete to steady himself. He looks up at Batman, a question in his eyes, but he yelps again when he realizes Batman has somehow gotten his cock out of his suit in what seems like the blink of an eye.

“What are you-” Tim starts to ask, but Batman grabs Tim’s head, essentially shutting him up.

“Suck,” is all the older man says, and Tim tries to pull back, to get free, but Batman’s hands grip onto Tim’s face, and he can’t move-

“Open your mouth,” Batman growls and when Tim doesn’t comply, he feels fingers ripping his mouth open and he chokes-

The dream swirls and suddenly they're alone on the rooftop, the tied men suddenly gone, and Batman is forcing his cock into Tim’s mouth. Tim’s crying and sobbing and begging him not to, asking him to stop, but Batman just hums and fucks Tim’s face until he’s gagging and choking and he can’t breathe-

He can’t breathe and Batman is being so cruel-

(Bruce is hurting Tim and this isn’t the way Tim wanted this, he wanted sweet, and gentle-)

“This is all you're good for,” Dream Batman says as he pulls Tim’s hair and forces himself further down, and Tim can’t breathe. “This is the only reason I keep you around.” 

Tim closes his eyes and he bangs his fist against Batman’s hips as if that could stop him but Batman laughs cruelly and thrusts deep into Tim’s mouth and Tim chokes one last time-  
And then he wakes up, Batman’s red eyes still in his mind. The alarm clock on his nightstand reads 7 am, which means he only just fell asleep two hours ago. He takes a few deep breaths to calm down his heart and tells himself it was just a dream. It was just a dream. He’s not on a rooftop, he’s in his apartment. Batman isn’t with him, he’s alone.

Bruce would never do that. He’d never hurt Tim, not like that. 

There’s no use trying to go back to sleep. He’s exhausted and he should go back to sleep, but he doesn’t want to have another nightmare. Not one like that, at least. 

How fucked up is he, if he dreams of Bruce raping him? He would never do that. 

Tim swings his legs onto the floor. He’ll get some coffee then maybe head into work early. After work today he’s supposed to go patrolling with Batman tonight, and the thought of that makes something in him squeeze. 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Tim tells himself as he heads to make a pot of coffee. He’ll be just fine on patrol tonight. Batman wouldn’t hurt him. 

Tim makes his coffee and even decides to sip at it on his deck. From this far up, Gotham really doesn’t look bad. It’s early, the sun barely there, and the streets of Gotham aren’t too loud. Not quiet, because Gotham is never quiet, but it’s nice. Here, Tim can almost forget that it’s Gotham.

***  
Wayne Enterprises will always be a favorite place of Tim’s. Here, he is in charge. People respect him, look up to him. He belongs here. And most of all, Bruce must think so too, or Tim wouldn’t be in this position. 

Bruce was getting into the swing of things since coming back, and he seemed like he was more than happy to let Tim continue to run the business while he adjusted. He shows up here and there, just to check things out, but ultimately things are left to Tim. He trusts Tim, and that makes him glow. 

Tim gives three presentations, skips lunch, runs a board meeting, and is just leaving at 7pm. He was exhausted, especially since he didn’t sleep well, but he was also extremely excited, though trying to hide it. He was patrolling tonight. Just him and Batman, like they used to. 

As he drives up to the manor, he can’t help but think of his dream. He freezes as he remember’s Batman’s hands opening his mouth, the way he forced himself inside . . . 

“Just a dream,” Tim tells himself, and enters the manor.

Alfred greets him with a smile and a, “Master Tim, welcome home.” He acts like this is the first time Tim is back since he rented his apartment, which it isn’t. He’s been back plenty of times by now, but Alfred is always happy to see him. It makes Tim feel just a bit guilty. 

“Hi Alfred,” TIm says back. Tim sniffs the air and the smell fo Alfried’s shepherds pie hits Tim’s nose. He loves Alfred’s shepherds pie, but it’s already 7:30. Dinner is usually served at 6. At Tim’s questioning glance, Alfred chuckles and says, 

“I have delayed dinner for your arrival. Master Damian seems to think his stomach will start to eat itself if he has to wait any longer. Come.” 

Tim follows Affred into the dining room, where he can see Bruce and Damian already sitting, Bruce waiting patiently, and Damian with his arms crossed. He sneers when he sees Tim, but doesn’t say anything. Bruce smiles at Tim, hesitantly. 

The others may not be the best at reading Bruce, but there’s a reason Dick used to call Tim Bruce’s mini me. Tim was a good detective, and good at reading people. To anyone else, Bruce looks happy to see Tim, but to Tim, he can see the nervousness. The hesitation. 

It’s ridiculous, in Tim’s opinion, as Bruce has seen him plenty times since they’ve fucked. It’s the same look as always: as if he can’t tell if he wants to smile at Tim, or maybe not look at Tim at all. Maybe he’s not sure what to do with Tim.

Tim slides into his seat silently, and then Alfred serves them, and they eat in silence. Tim focuses on the pie and tries not to think the silence is his fault. Alfred’s pie, as always, is delicious, and Tim has no qualms in making sure he’s stuffed before patrol. 

“Father,” Damian starts as they’re all almost done, “when will you be driving me to Grayson’s?” 

It’s the weekend, Tim remembers. Damian will be going to Dick’s. It’ll just be Tim and Bruce the entire weekend, unless some random super stops by, which isn’t outside the realm of possibilities. Maybe that’s why Bruce is nervous. It’ll be the first time alone since they slept together. (Minus their time as Batman and Red Robin, of course.)

“As soon as you’re done eating,” Bruce answers. “Are you packed?”

“Of course. I am always ready.” Damian nods his head as if being packed on time is a good skill he has that makes him better than everyone else. Tim resists the urge to snort.

“Is everyone done?” Alfred reappears as Tim’s shoulder, and Tim shoves one last bite into his mouth before nodding, while Bruce and Damian give verbal answers. 

“Get your things,” Bruce tells Damian, who jumps out of his seat before remembering to hide his excitement. Bruce doesn’t even bother to hide his smile as he smiles at his son who all but rushes to get his things. 

With Damian gone, Bruce turns his attention to Tim. “Why don’t you nap? I’ll wake you for patrol.”

It still was relatively easy, and with his stomach full for the first time since he’s moved, Tim doesn’t even try to fight him. He could go for a nap. He didn’t sleep well, after all, and he wants to be his best for patrol. 

“You’ll wake me?” Tim asks, just to be sure. He doesn’t want to miss patrol tonight. 

Bruce chuckles. “I promise.” 

So Tim nods, resists the urge to rub his eyes, and goes upstairs to sleep for a bit. Besides, Bruce will be driving Damian to Dick’s anyway. It’s also still a bit early for patrol, too. Batman wouldn’t go out just yet. 

Tim finds it easy to fall asleep, and he wakes later to a hand on his shoulder and his name being whispered. 

Bruce leans over him, a smile on his face as his fingers twirl through Tim’s hair. It’s so . . . fatherly, and Tim can’t help but smile sleepily in turn. Bruce used to do this when Tim first moved to the manor full time, where the emptiness of the manor still used to scare Tim. Tim was used to being alone, had been used to it since a small child, but something about being alone in the huge Wayne manor scared Tim even though he tried to hide it. 

Tim breaths in Bruce’s scent and smiles back. 

“Why don’t you suit up? Come to the batmobile when you’re ready.” 

“You got it,” Tim answers. Bruce smiles one last time before he leaves. 

Quickly, Tim grabs his suit from the backpack he brought, and barely has it all before he runs to the batcave. He’s so excited for tonight. (He hopes they don’t run into any gangs-between that and seeing Batman, Tim doesn’t think he could handle any more reminders of his dream.)

Batman is ready in the batcave, but he doesn’t say anything to Tim as he walks in. Together, they get into the batmobile and then they’re off, speeding away to head into danger. Just like old times.

They start off slow. They stop a couple of muggers, a couple of breaks in, even help stop a domestic report before the police get there. Listening to Batman explain to a lady that she can’t throw a pan at her husband’s head is almost comical. It would be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that the man can’t even look them in the eye, and the woman is yelling, and it’s clear this is an unhealthy relationship. Tim feels for the man. He knows a thing or two about unhealthy relationships and not being able to walk away. 

Then they get into more dangerous territory. They stop a couple of shootings, stop a rape, and even stop an attempted murder. (It would be an actual murder if the teenage kid actually knew how to use the numchucks he stole.)

It’s a good night, until they ran into an A-list villain. Realistically, Tim knew it was only time before they ran into one. Tim hadn’t had to deal with any of them in almost a year. But, something about seeing Scarecrow sends Tim’s stomach dropping. (His stomach has been doing that a lot as of lately. Maybe he needs to get that checked out.)

Scarecrow hasn’t been seen in almost two years, even before Bruce was lost in time. Rumors circulated that he had died. He had never gone so long before without causing trouble. Clearly he was alive though. Maybe he had some family issues? 

It doesn’t matter. Red Robin chases him through an abandoned warehouse and at least at this point, Tim is more annoyed than scared. (For right now.) Seriously, isn’t Scarecrow too much of an A-lister to be chased through a warehouse? Warehouses are for like, B-list villains and below. Tim has a list. This is a little ridiculous. 

“Red Robin,” Oracle says into ear, and the rudeness of it startles Tim, but it’s just Oracle, not Batman, and this wasn’t his dream. “Be careful. Rumors say he has a new batch of fear gas.”

A new batch means Bruce doesn’t have an antitoxin ready to go. He’d have to make a new one, and that would take hours. Tim swallows, but keeps his pursuit. He needs to stop Scarecrow while Batman can get to the bottom of what exactly his plans are.

Tim hopes it’s nothing too bad, but it could be anything from trying to dose the entire city, to using it to capture people for further experiments. Scarecrow was known for both. Batman would be figuring that out right now, and so Red Robin has to chase Scarecrow. He has too. 

The warehouse is huge, with multiple floors, but Oracle is in ear, helping him go where he needs to, when suddenly the lights go out. Tim’s swears. Batman has the night vision goggles. Tim doesn’t keep them in his own belt. 

“I lost sight of Scarecrow,” Tim growls into his com, annoyed at himself. He hesitantly walks up the stairs he was on when the lights went off. 

“Stay where you are,” Batman answers into the com. “I-”

But whatever he says is lost, as Tim suddenly hears a door bang right next to him. Scarecrow, it has to be. Tim makes a move for the door. 

“Do not pursue, Red Robin,” Batman says into com but Tim ignores it.

It wasn’t like him. He wasn’t like Dick or Jason. He listened to Bruce, because Tim knew how Bruce calculated every risk and usually knew what he was doing. Tim could appreciate the calculations and stimulation Bruce always did before he made a decision. 

Dick and Jason couldn’t see it, but Tim always did. Dick was passionate and always thought he was more invisible than he was. Jason was brutal and only did things his way. Tim wasn’t like that. Tim was like Bruce. 

But he can’t let Scarecrow get away. Batman hadn’t figured out what he was up to yet. They never should have gotten separated, but when Scarecrow suddenly appeared in the basement they were checking out for the “suspicious activity” reported in the area by Oracle, they hadn’t expected to see him.

Scarecrow was clearly working out of the basement, but Batman had fallen into a security trap, something that Tim had missed only because he was behind Batman at the time. Scarecrow had decided to make chase, and Batman had ordered Red Robin to follow. He could get himself out of the trap, Batman had told him. But they couldn’t lose Scarecrow, so Tim gave chase while Batman stayed behind to check out the basement. 

He’d leave now, probably already on his way to where they were, but it wouldn’t be fast enough. 

Tim opens the door and he says in his fake deep voice, “I know you’re here, Scarecrow.” 

Scarecrow laughs and Tim rolls his eyes. It’s so fake, obvious based off of other typical super villain laughter. These guys are never as original as they think. 

“Who has two hands and a syringe?” Scarecrow cooes. 

“What are you, the Riddler?” Tim answers as he takes a cautious step forward. He can’t see, but he can hear, and from the sounds of it, Scarecrow was a feet away from him. He suddenly flings out his fist and smiles as he feels it connect with Scarecrow’s jaw. 

“You stupid Batbrat!” 

“No, that’s my brother,” is the last thing Tim says before he feels something prick his neck. Oh fuck him. How is that even possible? The Scarecrow was still howling in pain across from him. How-

“Night night, Birdie,” someone whispers into Tim’s ear. 

Someone else was in the room, and Tim hadn’t noticed. But he recognized the voice. It WAS the Riddler! What? The supervillains were teaming up? What was this, a bad fanfiction? Fanfiction annoyed Tim. He always bottomed in them. He didn’t mind bottoming, but he imagines sometimes he’d like to top, too. (He once read a really steamy fanfiction of Red Robin getting his world rocked by Superboy. This was before Kon died, and the two of them laughed so hard they both cried.)

He’s starting to hallucinate, he realizes, and the last thing he hears before the fear gas kicks in is Oracle’s voice begging Tim to answer him. Then the hallucinations start. 

***

It starts off as it did the last time Tim got fear gassed. His mother’s mangled body comes to life as a zombie corpse. It doesn’t speak, just growls and reaches for him, like something out of Resident Evil. 

Tim yelps and tries to take a step back, but he can’t. That’s usual for him, too. He can never really move in his hallucinations. He knows it’s different for everyone, that Dick has hallucinations where he’s running for miles, being chased by Deathstroke.

It’s good that he can think of Dick at this point. It means he’s not too far into the hallucinations, though he can’t tell what’s happening around him or how long it’s been going on for. 

The hallucination changes and it’s Kon’s who the zombie, then Steph, then Cassie and Bart. It’s getting worse, because suddenly they’re in a weird zombie herd and coming straight for Tim. It’s only then does Tim finally scream.

Just as the zombie herd is about to get to him, the hallucinations change again, and suddenly he is on his back with the Red Hood on top of him. Tim screams again and kicks out his legs. No no no no, Jason is going to kill him.

“Get off me!” TIm cries, but Jason just grins down, his mouth bloody. 

“Hiya, Replacement.” Then the blade is coming down on his throat-

The hallucination swirls, and this point Tim is crying and shaking. “No more,” he cries, and at first there’s nothing and he thinks it stopped, but then from the darkness he hears Damian's voice say, “Drake.” He tuts a few times, and then the boy steps out from the shadows. 

“Drake,” the little boy repeats again, shakes his head, “you can’t even get yourself out of this, can you? You’re useless. Don’t worry though. Father won’t have to deal with you for much longer.” 

Tim knows it’s coming but he can’t move, can only cry out as Damian’s knife plunges into his heart. Tim gasps as blood starts to pour from his body, and suddenly the entire room is filled with his blood and Tim’s dying, he knows he’s dying. He’s drowning in the blood, gasping for air as the life leaves his body and he hears Damian chuckling when the hallucination swirls again. 

At first, Tim thinks it’s finally done. He’s on a rooftop, and everything seems normal. He’s not bleeding and there’s no zombies, no Red Hood, no demon brat.

He hears the sound of a cape rustling in the wind and sees Batman touch down on the rooftop. Since when can Batman fly? 

“Red Robin,” Batman greets him and Tim sighs in relief. 

“Batman! Thank god! I think I got fear gassed, I don’t know what’s happening but-”

“Get on your knees,” Batman says calmly. 

Tim’s entire body freezes. He doesn’t say anything. This feels very familiar. He doesn’t move. 

Batman loses his patience. “On your knees, Tim,” he growls and Tim whimpers but still doesn’t move. 

Then, like a broken record, Batman pushes Tim’s onto his knees, and he flattens his palms on the concrete to steady himself. 

“Batman, please, don’t,” Tim begs. 

Batman ignores him, and he knows what’s coming next. He feels the hands on his head, forcing his mouth open and he screams again, yells, “No! Don’t!”

Then Batman is taking his cock out and Tim starts to struggle but Batman’s strong hands hold him in place. “Don’t,” Tim sobs. “Please don’t, I don’t want this, stop!”

He doesn’t speak again as Bruce forces himself inside Tim’s mouth.

The hallucination swirls back to the beginning, back to Janet Drake’s reanimated corpse and the hallucinations repeat over and over into a horrible nightmare loop. 

***

Tim finally comes to with one last scream. When his eyes fly open, he sees he’s handcuffed to a cot. He hears the bats above him before he sees them, and then his eyes take in the monitors. It’s over. He’s finally awake. 

“Tim?” 

Bruce appears cautiously at his side, dressed in pajama pants and a silk buttoned down pajama shirt. It has his initials monogrammed into it. Who the hell monograms their pajamas? Rich people, that’s who.

When Tim doesn’t answer, Bruce repeats his name again. 

“Is it really you?” Tim asks, because he has to be sure the hallucinations are over. His mouth suddenly aches in phantom pain. Is this a hallucination? 

“Yes.” 

“Tell me something only you would know,” Tim demands, ignoring the pain in his head. 

Bruce doesn’t answer right away as he thinks of what to say. Finally, he says in a soft voice, almost like a whisper, “You called me Daddy when we had sex.” 

Tim blanches in surprise. It’s the first time Bruce has brought up their time together since the day it happened. They both have been avoiding talking about it, and as far as Tim is concerned, they never have to. Bruce and Tim both make sure things aren’t awkward between them. They don’t want to set anyone off. No one else knows, as Tim and Bruce were both very good at keeping secrets from other people.

At least what he said was true though. This was real. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Tim answers and Bruce sighs. 

“How are you feeling?”

Tim thinks about it. His head hurts, but the soreness in his jaw is gone, and he doesn’t feel any phantom pain in his neck or chest. He doesn’t feel any broken bones, doesn’t even feel any bruises so he says, “Okay,” because physically he is fine. 

“And mentally?” Bruce pushes. 

Tim just shakes his head. They both know he’d be lying if he answered. Why can’t Bruce just give him a break? He was just fear gassed. Obviously he’s not okay. 

“What happened to Scarecrow?” Tim demands. He suddenly remembers what happened right after he got pricked and he gasps, sitting up in his cot as best as he can while being handcuffed. “The Riddler!” Tim cries, trying to ignore the sudden nausea he gets from sitting up too fast. “He was there! They’re teaming up, we have to stop them!”

Bruce shakes his head and gently pushes Tim back into a lying position on the cot. “Easy.” Then he shakes his head. “They got away. By the time I got to you, they were already gone.”

“Did you figure out what they were planning? It can’t be good if those two are teaming up.”

“Tim, calm down, please. You’re going to hurt yourself. You need to rest.” 

“But-”

“There wasn’t anything in the basement. We’ll have to work this as a case, which we will. For now, why don’t you rest?” 

Bruce uncuffs Tim and Tim reaches up to rub at his sore wrists, but he doesn’t blame Bruce for handcuffing him. He’s seen what people do during fear gas. Some run and hide, never to be found again, some accidentally jump off bridges or out of cars, some claw their eyes out, etc. Tim’s seen some very bad reactions. 

“Sleep here for the rest of the night. Are you hungry? Alfred’s brought you a sandwich.” 

Bruce holds a wrapped PB&J sandwich, Tim’s favorite. He also sees two chocolate chip cookies. Comfort food. Alfred must know that he was gassed then. 

“How long was I out?” Tim asks as he takes the sandwich. He’s not really hungry, but he wants the comfort so he takes a bite out of it anyway. 

When he was little and his parents left him alone, all he could make were PB&Js and cereal. When he was scared from a nightmare and his parents weren’t there, Tim would make a PB&J. He would pack them in his lunch box and take them to school as they were easy to make. They have always been a comfort to Tim and he feels a rush of warmth as he chews a lump of jelly. 

“Just a few hours,” Bruce answers in a business voice. “It took me awhile to make a new antidote.” 

Tim nods, accepting the answer, and takes another bite of the sandwich. They lapse into silence. Bruce hesitates by his side, unsure if he should leave Tim or not. There’s something else he wants to talk about, Tim can figure that out. 

“What?” Tim asks, sighing as he sets down the sandwich. “Whatever you want to ask, just ask it.” 

Bruce hides his shock well and he smiles proudly down at Tim. “You really are a good detective aren’t you?”

“You’re stalling.” 

Bruce nods his head. “I am.”

“Why?”

Again, Bruce doesn’t answer right away. Tim waits impatiently, about to snap at him to just spit it out, when Bruce finally says slowly, “What did you see?”

It’s not an unusual question. They usually always share what they see, which is how he knows Dick see’s Deathstroke when he’s under the fear gas, and how he knows Bruce sees himself dying alone and his parent’s deaths. 

Tim tells him everything except the last part. He’s honest in his answers about seeing his mom and friends, something he’s seen before on fear gas. Bruce nods as Tim explains what he sees, stopping after the part about Damian trying to kill him.

“Is that all you saw?” Bruce pushes again and Tim hesitates before nodding. He doesn’t need Bruce to know the last part.

But Bruce looks unhappy with his answer and of course Bruce benign Bruce, can’t leave it alone. “Nothing else?”

“No.” 

“You saw something else. What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Tim snaps. “Just drop it.” It was none of Bruce’s goddamn business what he saw. He’s lucky Tim even shared the other things. Why does he have to push it? Can’t he just leave it alone?

“You said my name,” Bruce snaps back, and Tim’s whole body freezes. When he doesn’t respond right away, Bruce continues, “You said Batman’s name. I heard you.”

Tim could lie, but there’s no use, because clearly Bruce already has an inkling to what Tim saw. Still he shakes his head desperately. He can’t tell Bruce. He can’t let him know how fucked in the head Tim is. Who hallucinates about their adopted dad raping them? Maybe people with abusive dads, but Bruce never laid a hand on Tim that he didn’t want. 

“You were hallucinating me. I heard you. You said Batman. What did I do to you, Tim? How did I hurt you?”

“You didn’t. You weren’t there.” Tim is lying anyway because he can’t admit the truth. Bruce can’t find out, he has to desperately hold onto his remaining secret.

“Tell me!” Bruce has never really yelled at Tim like this before, but Tim stills holds on.

“No! It’s none of your business!” Tim screams back. He’s not Jason, he never had the issue of matching people’s energy when they yell at him. Usually Tim stays quiet and takes it, but god, he can’t let this get out.

“Tim, whatever it is you can tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me, okay?” Bruce reaches for his hair and Tim flinches back. He can’t let Bruce touch his head, he can’t, even if Bruce was clearly just trying to comfort him.

God, he’s so fucked, but Bruce can’t touch his head because he’ll end up thinking about how Batman had grabbed his head and forced his jaw open-

“You raped me, okay?” and Tim hadn’t meant to say that, but he can’t let Bruce touch him right now. “Is that what you want to hear? You forced your dick in my mouth and gagged me. Okay? That’s why I didn’t want to fucking tell you.”

Bruce rears back as if Tim had slapped him. Tim can feel his heart pounding in his chest. The silence of the cave is so loud, even though he can hear the bats and the beeps from the monitor. 

Bruce’s mouth opens and closes like he’s trying to say something, but not sure what. Tim feels momentarily bad for making Bruce like that, but it only lasts for a few seconds. Bruce shouldn’t have pushed him to answer it, because he clearly heard something he didn’t want to. 

“I-” the older man starts to say then closes his mouth again. He purses his lips. 

He’s startled, Tim thinks. He hadn’t suspected Tim to say what he did. “It’s fine,” Tim finally says. “I know it was just a hallucination.” When Bruce still doesn’t say anything, Tim sighs and says, “It’s okay, really. I know you wouldn’t actually do that, okay? It’s okay.”

It has to be okay. Tim can’t handle it if they aren’t okay again. He needs them to be okay so bad. 

“Tim,” Bruce finally says. It sounds like he’s hurt, as if Tim’s words had hurt him. “It is not okay.”

No, no, no, no. They have to be okay. They just fixed their issues, they can’t go back to how things were. No. 

“It was just a hallucination! Seriously, Bruce, it’s fine.”

“Do you think I’d do that to you?” Bruce asks, like he’s actually unsure of the answer. Maybe a part of him really believes Tim thinks he’ll rape him one day. 

“No! Of course not, Bruce. It’s not like that. I also saw my mom’s dead corpse, okay? I don’t actually think the world is suddenly going to turn into a zombie apocalypse.”

Bruce still looks unsure. “We… we had sex,” he starts to say. 

Suddenly, Tim is desperate to make Bruce see that it isn’t like that. 

“I asked for that. You’d never hurt me like that. I know.” Tim reaches for Bruce. He grasps the other man’s hand like a lifeline. “You won’t hurt me.” When Bruce doesn’t pull away, Tim gently sits up in bed. 

Bruce doesn’t pull away. 

Tim kisses him. Bruce sighs into the kiss, like he’s disappointed that they’re doing it again, but he kisses Tim back. They hadn’t done anything since they had sex and Tim forgot how good Bruce is good at kissing. When they pull back, Tim looks at Bruce like the man walks on water. 

(Bruce looks at Tim like the younger man is a puzzle Bruce has to figure out.)

“I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” Tim whispers and Bruce nods. Tim squeezes Bruce’s hand and pulls, not hard enough to actually drag Bruce down, but so that Bruce knows he wants him to get on the cot with him. 

The other man only hesitates for a second before he’s lying down onto the space Tim has left. The cot is a bit crowded, but they fit. Bruce is rich, he buys big cots. 

Tim curls his body into Bruce, who tucks him into his chest. 

“Be gentle,” Tim whispers, before leaning up to kiss Bruce. 

“I’d never hurt you,” Bruce responds.

This time when they have sex, Bruce is gentle. It’s exactly how Tim wanted it last time but had been too scared to ask. He fingers Tim open with ease, kissing him to swallow down Tim’s whimpers. There’s no rush, they have all the time in the world. Bruce fucks him with sweet, slow thrusts and Tim hums in content. 

“I love you,” Tim pants as Bruce bites down into his neck, then runs his tongue over the spot to soothe him. This time, he feels so loved. He feels safe, pressed into the cot with Bruce’s naked body over him. 

Bruce wouldn’t ever hurt him. He wouldn’t. He’s loving Tim this time.

Bruce groans but he tells Tim he loves him, too.

Tim cries as he comes, but it’s happy tears. He’s just overwhelmed, the feel of Bruce on top of him, coming inside of him, loving him. It’s a good overwhelmed though, and Bruce wipes away his tears with his thumb and a sad smile. 

(He hadn’t forced Tim to suck his dick. Tim hadn’t thought he would.)

It would be too suspicious if Bruce fell asleep with Tim, so he heads up to his own bed once he makes sure Tim is okay to sleep on the cot for a few hours. Tim sleeps just fine, and he doesn’t even have one nightmare.

The next time Tim wakes up, Alfred is standing over him. 

The man looks relieved to see Tim is doing okay. He helps Tim sit up and helps wobble Tim to the shower. Tim doesn’t need any help as he doesn’t have any physical ailments, but Tim suspects Alfred knows that. It’s more about Alfred wanting to make sure Tim is okay. 

The man in question even waits while Tim showers and dresses in the clothes he picked out for Tim. Then the two of them walk together toward the kitchen. Tim is suddenly starving, and he could go for a cup of coffee. 

His appetite disappears though as he sees Dick and Damian at the kitchen table. 

Tim freezes in the doorway as Alfred continues on back toward the stove. “Tim!” Dick stands and walks towards his brother. 

“What are you doing here?” Tim demands. It was supposed to be just Bruce and him (and Alfred) this weekend. Damian wasn’t supposed to be here, and Dick really wasn’t supposed to be here. He hadn’t seen Dick since Bruce came back. 

“I heard you got hit with the fear gas,” Dick explains as he wraps his arms around Tim. Tim doesn’t push him, but he doesn’t hug back, either. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“He was quite worried about you, Master Tim.” Alfred doesn’t turn to look at them, his focus on whatever he’s stirring in the pot. “I reassured him you were okay, but he seemed to want to see you himself.”

“I told him he was being ridiculous,” Damian cuts in, glaring at Tim, who still does not return Dick’s hug. “You are fine, Drake.” 

Dick sighs once he realizes Tim isn’t going to hug him back. He steps away, but keeps his eyes on Tim, as if checking to make sure Tim doesn’t have any broken bones Bruce and Alfred missed. “I had to see for myself. Fear gas is never fun.”

“You could have stayed,” Tim says back to him. He makes a sidestep so that he can bypass Dick and sit down at his seat at the table. “I’m fine.”

“See Grayson? Drake is fine. We can go back to your apartment after breakfast now.”

Tim doesn’t say anything but he agrees with Damian for once. They can go back to Dick’s apartment, and Tim can continue his weekend with Bruce. He doesn’t like that Dick and Damian are there, splitting Bruce’s time. Maybe they’ll have sex again so that way Tim can have him again in the only way he can. 

“We’re not going back just for us to come back again on Sunday so I can drop you off. We’ll both stay the weekend.” Dick pauses then towards Bruce. “If that’s okay with you.” 

Bruce sets down his coffee cup. “Of course. You’re always welcome here, Dick.” 

Dick nods and smiles and picks up his own cup of orange juice. Tim’s good mood plummets. Great. A whole weekend with Damian and Dick. Was this just an excuse for Dick to come back? To see Tim? They hadn’t seen each other in so long. Dick saw an opening and grabbed onto it. 

It angers Tim. He can’t wait for Monday, to be back in his own apartment. It’s going to be a long weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that Tim is a very unreliable narrator and what he thinks Bruce is feeling may not be how he actually feels. Anything he says about the others are through his own deductive skills, which may or may not be accurate.


	3. Enter Jason, Stage Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason Todd is just a man, Tim reminds himself.

Tim frowns as he looks at the results on the monitor. In the background, he can hear Bruce filling Dick in about Scarecrow and Riddler, but Tim is already in the know so he focuses on the reports. They’re . . . weird. People reporting strange things that Tim can’t understand. 

“. . . little boy, aged eight, reported being watched by a white van . . .”

“. . .woman, 32, reported being grabbed by three men . . . later to realize she was never grabbed at all . . .”

This really wasn’t making sense. Sex trafficking? That’s what the reports sound like, but what does that have anything to do with Scarecrow and the Riddler? Neither villain ever went down that route before as far as Tim knows. Tim frowns and reads another report. The background of Dick and Bruce fade away. They are irrelevant to the findings on the page Tim reads. He’s so into it that he jumps when a hand touches down on his shoulder. 

“How’s the reports, Timmy?” Dick’s eager face looms over Tim, eyes hopeful. 

Tim really hates Dick. He hates how the older man has only been here for a few hours and already is trying to pretend like things are back to normal, like he and Tim hadn’t talked in months. (Like Dick hadn’t called Tim crazy, took his suit, and gave it to the person who tried to kill him.)

“They’re fine.” Tim turns his chair so that he can’t see Dick’s face anymore. Why can’t he just be left alone? Tim doesn’t want to fix their relationship. As far as Tim is concerned, he doesn’t think he could ever forgive Dick, not unless he actually apologized, (and even then-) but Dick seems determined to pretend like nothing happened and everything is okay. 

Hurt quickly flashes on Dick’s face but Tim pretends not to see. Dick never was as good as hiding his emotions like Tim and Bruce. The original Robin has always been an open book. If Dick was sad, everyone knew. If Dick was happy, everyone knew. It used to be a relief to Tim, who often got annoyed at Bruce’s neutral face. Now, after everything, it just annoys Tim, too. 

“How about we stop for lunch?” Dick asks, hands gripping the back of Tim’s chair. (It takes all of Tim not to flinch.) “We can go out, just you and me, like old times! We can make a day out of it, maybe we can go to the zoo?”

It may have been appealing if Tim was five, but he’s not five, and Dick can’t just fix everything with a burger and a trip to the zoo. Besides, Tim doesn’t want a trip to the zoo, he wants to study the reports. 

“We just had breakfast a few hours ago,” Tim says, keeping his eyes on the reports. He flips a page and his eyes focus on another recounting of another little kid who had told her parents she’d been kidnapped, but was later determined that nothing had happened to the girl. Interesting.

“Exactly, Tim! It’s almost time for lunch.” Dick seems determined to spend time with Tim, who sighs, clearly frustrated, but Dick continues on as if he hadn’t noticed. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Dick, I can’t express how much I really don’t want to do anything with you. Not now, not ever. Right now, I want to go over these reports, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.” 

Stunned silence echoes in the Batcave. Bruce looks up from his own reports. He hadn’t been pretending to not eavesdrop, but at least he didn’t make it obvious that he was listening. Now, he looks at Tim and Dick. Tim, who doesn’t bother to hide how annoyed he is, and Dick, who doesn’t bother to hide how hurt he is. 

“Tim,” Bruce starts but Dick cuts him off with a wave of hand. 

“It’s fine, Bruce. I guess Tim is really busy right now.” Dick smiles, but his eyes look wet. A quick flash of guilt hits Tim but he pushes it away. It’s not his fault. He’s not responsible for the other man’s feelings, especially since Dick hadn’t even thought to think of Tim’s feelings when he took Robin. “I’ll go see what Damian is doing.” 

Dick smiles at Tim and finally leaves the cave. Tim huffs and goes back to his reports. He’s not even sure why Dick felt the need to be in the cave anyway. It wasn’t like he was helping with the case, and all he did was distract Bruce. 

Tim purposely doesn’t look at Bruce when he comes to stand behind Tim’s chair, just where Dick was a minute ago. 

“You know,” Bruce starts, “Dick is trying.”

Here we go again. Tim shrugs his shoulders and pretends like he’s focusing on the reports in front of him, but he’s hyper aware of the older man behind him. 

“It says something that he gave up his time with Damian to come see you.”

It does say something, but not the something Bruce sees. To Tim, it says, “Damian will always be my first priority, and you’re only an afterthought if you’re hurt.” 

He doesn’t know why Bruce cares about it so much. Why does it affect Bruce if Tim doesn’t want to hang out with Dick? Bruce should see it from Tim’s point of view. He really doesn’t think he’s being unreasonable by not hanging out with the man who practically ruined his life. (He’s being a bit dramatic but it’s true. The minute Dick took Robin from him changed everything.)

When Tim doesn’t answer, Bruce sighs and turns Tim’s chair so that they’re face to face. They’re so close that Tim could just angle his face, just so that his lips would graze Bruce . . . but he wouldn’t, not now. Not with Dick and Damian walking around above them. 

“Why don’t you take Dick up on his offer, Tim?” There’s something about Bruce’s voice that makes Tim licks his lips, makes him aware of the way his heart starts to beat faster in his chest. “For me?” 

Bruce’s voice is deeper than before, and he keeps eye contact with Tim. A shiver goes through Tim and he can’t help the whimper that escapes him. As if he was waiting for that, Bruce’s hand comes slowly up to touch Tim’s face. When Tim doesn’t move, doesn’t pull away, Bruce uses his other hand to cup Tim’s face fully. 

“It would mean a lot to me if you two talked.”

Tim closes his eyes and tries to wills away the arousal that’s slowly burning through him. He feels Bruce turn his face up, and he opens his eyes just to close them again as Bruce brings their lips together slowly. 

“Just lunch and the zoo, okay?” Bruce murmurs, and Tim breathes out his yes before closing the distance, Dick and Damian be damned. 

It only lasts a few seconds, but it’s enough for Tim to feel his blood rushing south, his dick twitching. He’s half hard by the time Bruce traces his mouth with his tongue. His left hand leaves Tim’s face to run down Tim’s side and oh-

“Okay?”

Tim nods, swallowing the sudden rush of saliva in his mouth as Bruce pulls down Tim’s zipper. He really didn’t care who could walk in at this moment, confident in Bruce’s ability to hear anyone who might. 

It’s just a quick hand job, but it’s enough to leave Tim gasping and begging, eyes wet as Bruce palms him through his boxers. 

“My good boy,” Bruce murmurs into Tim’s ears and Tim’s back arches. “Such a good boy . . .”

Tim gasps, focused on the way Bruce works his hand on Tim’s cock. He can smell Bruce, the aftershave smell that Tim really likes, can feel his hard muscles as he grips Bruce’s biceps, can see the man’s pupils, blown wide as he gazes down at Tim with dark eyes . . . 

Bruce thumbs Tim’s slit and that’s all he needs before he gasps again and spills over Bruce’s fists, choking in air like he’ll never get it again. He’s aware of Bruce petting his hair and telling him he’s a good boy, but it’s like an echo in the distance as he focuses on the orgasm crashing through him. 

Tim collapses back into the desk chair, boneless but feeling good. They never really did this before. Bruce has never initiated anything before, and the two times they fucked had been for Tim, because Tim had asked for it, but now it seems like Bruce was finding his way through whatever this relationship was, and he didn’t seem scared to use sex as some kind of bargaining chip. 

Tim really didn’t care. He wasn’t dumb enough to think that this would be a healthy relationship or whatever. He has his reasons for the sex just like he’s sure Bruce has his. As long as the sex continued, Tim didn’t care what those reasons were. 

Still, he is a little shocked to see Bruce use sex like this, but it doesn’t bother Tim. He’ll do whatever Bruce wants, because the thought of losing Bruce again sends panic all throughout him. 

“Here.” Bruce holds out some tissues and Tim takes them with a grimace. 

Once they're both cleaned and come-free, Bruce smiles as Tim the way he always does after they’ve fucked (and they hadn’t done that a lot, but Tim’s starting to notice the pattern). “I’m sure if you leave now, you can catch Dick.” 

It’s a dismissal clear as day, so Tim nods and carefully gets out of his seat. His legs feel like jelly but the smile on his face is so big it makes his face hurt. 

He finds Dick easy enough upstairs. Him and Damian are in the main lounge room, watching cartoons. Dick is grinning and explaining the merits of the show while Damian sits, arms crossed, but he seems placated enough. The boy can only act annoyed for so long before his true feelings come through. 

They look happy, like true brothers. Tim’s all too happy to interrupt them by clearing his throat. Immediately, Damian turns to glare at them, but Dick’s whole face seems to light up. 

“Tim! Do you want to watch cartoons with us? I was just explaining to Damian how Tom and Jerry works-”

“The show makes no sense,” Damian interrupts. “What’s the point if the cat never gets the rat? It’s very anticlimactic”

“It’s a mouse,” Dick answers, “and they do that so that the show can continue for multiple seasons.”

“Well, it’s very unrealistic.”

“Damian-”

Tim clears his throat again. Dick grins sheepishly. “Well, don’t be a stranger, Tim. Come sit down.”

Tim tugs nervously on his ear. He really didn’t want to be doing this. “Uh, Dick? I was wondering, uh.” He clears his throat, tries again. “Maybe we could go to the zoo after all?”

For a second, Dick is silent, like he can’t believe what Tim just said, then a big smile graces his face. “Yes! It’ll be so fun, Timmy.”

Tim highly doubts it’ll be fun, but he keeps his mouth closed. He promised Bruce he’d do this and he will, but that doesn’t mean he has to enjoy it. 

“The zoo?” Damian is frowning, as if the brat can’t wrap his mind around the concept of a zoo. “You’re going to the zoo?” Oh. It’s more like the fact Damian can’t wrap his mind around the fact that Dick and Tim are going to the zoo together. 

Dick is still my brother, too, Tim wants to tell Damian but doesn’t. Tim doesn’t know why he’s feeling so defensive. On one hand, he wants to make it clear that just because Damian is here it doesn’t mean Tim still isn’t part of this family. Dick is still his brother and Bruce is still his dad. 

But then that sets a weird feeling in his stomach as he remembers Bruce jerking him off not even five minutes ago. He doesn’t want Bruce to be his dad, nor does he want Dick to be his brother. Both of them ruined their relationships with Tim. 

So why is Tim feeling like this? Why does he want to rub it in Damian’s face that he’s fucking Bruce and Dick is taking him to the zoo? Why does he also want Dick to leave him alone and pray that Damian never finds out? It’s confusing and thinking of it makes Tim a bit sick so he pushes it to the back of his mind. 

Dick rubs the back of his neck nervously, eyes flickering from Tim to Damian. Tim waits, seeing what he’ll do. “Yes. I think the zoo will help get Tim’s endorphins up from, you know, the fear gas.” 

It’s a weak excuse, because God forbid Dick tell Damian that he actually wants to hang out with Tim for no reason other than he enjoys Tim’s company. (Because they’re brothers.) Tim wants to stick his tongue out at Damian, and he wants to tell Dick that his endorphins are up perfectly fine thanks to Bruce, but neither of those things would be very proper of him so he keeps his mouth shut. He wants to see how this plays out.

“Drake is fine, Grayson.” Damian turns to glare at Tim, who just raises an eyebrow at him in turn. “This is our weekend.”

Dick laughs nervously and ruffles Damian’s hair. “We hang out every weekend, Dami. Tim and I will only be gone for a few hours, and then you have me all to yourself again, okay? Tim needs me right now.”

“No, I don’t,” Tim says. Both boys ignore him. 

Damian seems on the verge of a meltdown. “This is ridiculous! You’re babying Drake! He doesn’t need you, and if he really needs endorphins then he can watch cartoons with us. He doesn’t have to take you away from me!”

You took Dick away from me first, Tim thinks. He rubs his temples, feeling a headache coming on. Dick looks lost for words as he looks back between his two brothers. He’s going to have to choose, and Tim really rather not be there to see Dick not choose Tim once again. 

“Why doesn’t he come with us?” When both boys turn to look at Tim, he shrugs. “I really don’t care if he does,” he tells Dick. It was the truth. He told Bruce he’d go to the zoo, to lunch, but he didn’t say they’d actually talk. Tim doesn’t want to talk, and Damian being there will crush the chances of Dick saying something he doesn’t want Damian to hear. 

Dick runs the suggestion over in his head before nodding carefully. He turns to Damian and asks, “What do you say, Damian? Wanna go out with us?”

Damian looks between Dick and Tim, clearly weighing his options. He’s nervous, too. He doesn’t want to take the chance Dick will choose Tim over him. Tim almost snorts. Damian doesn’t have to worry, Dick will always choose him over Tim.

“I suppose,” he says finally. 

Dick grins again, clearly relieved. “Perfect! Come on, let’s leave now!”

***

The zoo really isn’t that bad. Tim hasn’t been in years, and something inside of him lights up when they start to see the different animals. Even Damian can’t hide how excited the animals make him. Dick can’t stop grinning at the two of them, as if this is a magical zoo trip that’s suddenly going to make them get along. 

(As if it can make Tim and Dick both forget how Damian almost killed Tim.) 

They make their rounds around the zoo, and Dick fills the silence with anxious chatter and animal facts about every animal they see. Tim’s not sure if they’re even correct, but it’s better than Dick trying to talk to him, so he doesn’t say anything. (He’s pretty sure monkeys don’t have up to five babies at once, but then again, he’s not a zoologist, either.)

Finally, they come to the elephants. Tim knows Dick has a special connection to them and if Tim is being honest, he likes elephants. Damian apparently does too, and Dick wastes no time in lifting up the boy and putting him on his shoulders so that Damian can get a better look. 

Tim hears Dick explain the elephant's names and how important they are, but he also focuses on the big creatures in front of him. They truly were magnificent. If there really was some kind of way to choose where you’d go in the afterlife, if Tim believed in an afterlife anyway, then he thinks he may choose reincarnation and come back as an elephant. Really, he’d come back as anything other than human. He doesn’t think he could do this again. 

“What do you think, Timmy?”

Tim turns to Dick and cocks his head to the side. He missed whatever Dick had said to him. “What?”

“I asked if you wanted to pet the elephant?”

Tim turns toward the elephant in question, cocking his head. He did want to touch the elephant, he realized, but he also wanted to just go home, so he shook his head, and instead watched as Dick guided Damian’s hand over the elephant’s trunk. 

Damian has a look of wonder on his face. Just for a second, he looks like an average little boy at the zoo with his brothers. Just for a second, Tim wonders if things could have gone differently. (Just for a second.) Somewhere in an alternate universe, Bruce cared that Damian tried to kill him. Somewhere, Bruce never got stuck in time, Dick never took Robin from him. 

Somewhere in an alternative universe, there wasn’t Batman or any other superheroes. They were normal, and Bruce was just a rich guy with an adopting problem, and Tim really was his son, and so was Dick and Jason and Damian, and things were okay. Not perfect, but okay. Good, even. 

Somewhere, Bruce doesn’t fuck him, and Dick and him act like actual brothers, and Tim even likes Damian-maybe even sees him as an annoying but loveable kid brother. Maybe he even helps the kid with homework and girl problems. 

That somewhere wasn’t here though, and that ship has long since sailed. As interesting as it was to think of the alternatives, it also made Tim’s heart hurt because it would never be. Bruce could never just be his dad, Dick was never going to be his brother again and neither was Damian. 

Tim has to turn away and rub his eyes before he cries. “Can we go now? I'm hungry.” He’s not, but he suddenly wants to get out of this zoo. 

“Sure thing, Timmy!” Dick touches Tim’s back, and he flinches, steps away from Dick’s touch. He doesn’t turn to look at either of them, but he does hear Dick’s voice say, less enthusiastic now, “Come on. Let’s get burgers.”

Dick takes them to a burger joint that Tim and Damian had never been to before, but as long as it wasn’t Batburger, Tim was okay with it. They had veggie patties for Damian, and Dick even bullies the kid into getting fries and a milkshake, too. 

It’s stupid, but Tim wanted to be a little defiant, just a small little fuck you to Dick and his stupid plans, so he gets chicken nuggets instead of a burger, and a sprite instead of a milkshake. Dick smile falters, but he doesn’t say anything, and Tim counts it as a win. (Even though he really did want a cheeseburger.)

“So,” Dick starts after they get their food. Damian turns to look at him, but Tim pays no mind, concentrating on making sure he got enough BBQ sauce on his nugget before he dared pop it into his mouth, “did you guys have fun?”

“Had a blast,” Tim answers dryly. He chews the nugget carefully then winces. Too much BBQ sauce. He needs to work on his ratio.

“Damian?”

“The animals were . . . nice to see.” 

Why can’t the kid just admit he had a good time? Would it kill him if he did? Would it kill him to act like a normal boy?

“What was your favorite part?” Dick presses, clearly determined to make conversation. 

Tim ignores him even after Damian answers, choosing instead to focus on perfecting his nugget to sauce ratio. He even calculates his fry to sauce ratio, but he likes his fries with ketchup, so it’s a bit easier. He’s not used to dipping nuggets in BBQ sauce. He wanted honey mustard, but they were out. 

What kind of burger joint runs out of honey mustard? The kind that Dick picks, that’s the kind. 

“Tim? What about you?” 

Tim dips a new nugget into the sauce, being careful to make a small scoop this time. He takes a bite. Perfect. 

When Dick finally realizes Tim won’t answer his question, he sighs and turns back to Damian. Tim sips his sprite. The sprite wasn’t as carbonated as McDonald's sprite, but he can’t really hold that against them like he can the honey mustard. No sprite will ever live up to McDonald's.

They finish the rest of their food in silence. Tim almost thinks he made it the whole day without having to actually talk to Dick, but Damian, the demon fucking brat he is, falls asleep in the car on the way home. 

Dick clearly sees the chance just like Tim does and seizes it. Tim has to give him credit, he’d probably do the same thing if the roles were reversed. 

“I miss doing things like this with you,” Dick says, keeping his eyes on the road. 

“We never did these things,” Tim answers and it’s true. They never went to the zoo together before, never had that kind of brotherly relationship. 

Dick was already Nightwing and out of the manor, long gone by the time Tim became Robin. They had an okay relationship, and maybe eventually Dick did start to think of Tim as his brother, but they were never close. 

Whatever relationship they had in the past was not like the one Dick now has with Damian. 

Dick shrugs one shoulder, still not looking at Tim, keeping his eyes focused on the road in front of them. “I guess that’s true. Maybe we can continue to do these types of things, though?”

Tim twists his hands together and rests them on his lap. He doesn’t know what Dick is trying to do and it makes him a bit nervous. “One day at the zoo doesn’t fix us, Dick.”

Dick nods, like he was expecting Tim’s answer. “I know, I know. Look, Tim, for what it’s worth, I am sorry, okay? I’m sorry.” 

It’s all Tim has ever wanted to hear, but now that he’s heard it, it sounds wrong. He doesn’t want Dick to be sorry, he wants Dick to never have hurt him in the first place. Tim just lays his head against the window and closes his eyes. He’s suddenly so tired. 

“I just-” Dick drums one hand against his leg, nervous. “You have to understand, Damian needed to be Robin. You’d be fine without it, but Damian wouldn’t be. Bruce was gone and Damian wasn’t handling it well. He needed Robin.”

“So did I, Dick.” Tim’s friends were dead. He needed to be Robin, too. He needed to be Robin to Dick’s Batman just as much as Damian did. 

“I know, and that choice sucked, Timmy.”

It was starting to rain. Tim opens his eyes to see the water falling on the window. It was kind of too late. Tim wished it rained earlier while at the zoo, so they could have left sooner. 

“But,” Dick continues, “I had to. It wasn’t easy with Bruce being gone, and suddenly I was in charge of Damian, and it was a big adjustment for all of us, and I wasn’t prepared for any of that.”

“Neither was I. But I didn’t go around taking people’s secret hero identity from them, did I? I didn’t go around telling people they were crazy, either.” 

Dick sighs, perhaps finally realizing this conversation was going in circles. “What do you want me to do, Tim? What can I do to fix this?”

Tim mulls the question over. Is there anything Dick can do to fix it besides going back in time? Besides, even if given the choice to go back in time, Tim’s pretty sure Dick would still do it anyway. He would make all the same decisions-he wouldn’t fix a damn thing. 

So what can he do? Really, nothing. They both made their choices and now they have to live with them. That’s life. (Tim hopes maybe there’s no afterlife at all, in hopes he doesn’t come back as a human again. He can’t take that risk.)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tim thinks of what Bruce did to fix their problems and he releases a harsh breath of air. Was that what he needed from Dick? It would be the same concept, he thinks. Dick would never fuck Damian, he’s too much of a son to him. 

But Tim’s not Dick’s brother anymore, not really, hadn’t been in over a year now and Dick really does have a nice ass. Tim could imagine his dick sliding in and out- Then he pushes the idea out of his mind. 

Dick’s looking at him like he’s waiting for Tim to answer. Tim sighs and says, “Can you speed up? I want to look at the Scarecrow reports again before dinner.”

Dick seems to deflate into his seat, but he goes another five over the speed limit. 

***

That night, Tim asks Bruce to go out again, but Bruce is firm in his answer that Tim needs at least another full night of rest. The only thing that stops Tim from sneaking out anyway is that Batman doesn’t take Robin or Nightwing with him either. He goes out alone. 

Tim is determined to go out Sunday night, so he does what Bruce asks of him. He sleeps all throughout Saturday night and rises early enough Sunday morning to catch breakfast with Alfred. He spends the day avoiding Dick and Damian, instead opting to plant in the garden, read in the library, and go over the reports again. 

The reports worry Tim, and Bruce too though he doesn’t say it. Saturday patrol didn’t lead Bruce to any new information about Scarecrow and the Riddler, just new reports that make just about as much sense as the old ones: which is, none at all. 

The reports just don’t seem like Scarecrow’s or the Riddler's MO. Something else was at play here, but Tim couldn’t connect the dots just yet. This part always gave Tim a rush: figuring out the puzzle pieces and fitting them together until the whole picture came into view. Sure, Tim liked the fighting too, but the mystery of the crime was always his favorite part. 

When Sunday night patrol finally rolls around, Tim is almost convinced Bruce wouldn’t let him out, but that night found Tim in his uniform ready to go. Maybe when he was younger Bruce might have benched him for a week, but Tim was older now. There was no reason for him not to go out: he wasn’t scared or hurt in any way. He just wanted to get to the bottom of these reports.

Suited up and ready to go, Batman and Red Robin hit the streets, Gotham lights shining bright beneath them. Tim’s all ready to start looking for more clues, but Batman makes him take little routes, stop the small crimes like muggers and robbers first. 

Tim heads out to do that, but an hour into patrol leaves Tim with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Sure, there are muggers and robbers out, and he stops all that he sees, but Gotham is quiet. Well, quiet for Gotham’s standards anyway.

“Batman?” Tim asks as he meets up with the older man on the ground. Even the police that came for said mugger was quiet, and there was noticeably only one of him. No partner, no other patrol cars, just him.

“I know,” Batman says, letting Tim know that he sees it too. 

The policeman is nervous, and rushes the mugger into the car. He doesn’t even say anything to Batman, leaving Batman and Red Robin standing in the alley. 

“Something is going on,” Tim says, and Batman opens his mouth, but whatever he says is cut off.

“They don’t call you guys detectives for nothing, huh?” a sarcastic voice says behind them, and Tim jumps. (Batman does not. He just turns.)

Jason.

Or, well, the Red Hood.

It’s been awhile since Tim’s seen him, but he looks relatively the same. Big, almost as big as Bruce, and dressed in his usual get up, but the difference is his eyes. Tim can’t see much beyond the helmet, but his eyes are calm. Cool. Nothing like they looked like when they first met, when Todd tried to kill him. 

No, those wild animal eyes were gone, replaced by the cool ones of Jason Todd. 

Jason Todd is just a man, Tim reminds himself. He relaxes, realizing he went tense, but hoping he doesn’t appear panicked. He’s ready for a fight, just like Batman taught him to be prepared for with an unexpected guest, but he doesn’t appear scared. 

Tim’s shocked to realize he doesn’t appear scared because he isn’t scared. He’s not scared of Jason, not anymore. He’s just . . . resigned to him.

“Red Hood,” Batman acknowledges, crossing his arms. “What are you doing here?”

Tim wonders that, too. Jason has been back in Gotham for awhile, but he dips out for periods of time that doesn’t seem to have a schedule. Once, he left Gotham to chase a drug cartel for three months, and then another time he left Gotham for just three weeks to visit Dick in Bludhaven. (Up until then, Tim hadn't known the two talked, let alone visited each other.)

There was no pattern to what Jason did in Gotham, but he did patrol his area well enough. Batman turns a blind eye to the harsh beatings because Jason stopped killing a while ago. He does good on his patrols too, and Tim knows he does extremely good in organized crime. He may not be as good as a detective as him or Bruce, but he’s decent enough to figure things out. 

Jason leers at Batman, ignoring Tim completely. “What? A guy can’t stop by to say hi to his old man?”

Batman stays silent, glaring down at Todd, not rising to the heat. Jason glares back, and Tim feels like there’s a lot going unsaid that even he can’t figure out. He unconsciously shifts his weight, and Todd’s eyes snap to him, which snaps Tim’s eyes back to Todd.

“You got something up your ass, Replacement?” 

Tim hopes his stare is as unbothered as Batman’s. 

“Hood. What is going on?” 

For a second, Tim thinks Todd is going to ignore Batman and keep up his charade, but Hood actually sighs, and for the first time, Tim notices how tired Todd looks as his shoulders slump down and he runs a hand over his face. Or, well helmet. 

“You mean you haven’t noticed? Look around, Daddybat. No one is out.”

“We’ve noticed,” Tim says dryly. 

Todd turns to leer at Tim, no doubt ready to say something else remotely crude that Tim won’t allow to affect him, when Batman cuts in. “Do you know what’s going on?”

Again, Todd doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he looks at Tim and Batman, running his eyes up and down each of them, and it drives Tim crazy how he can’t tell what Todd must be looking for. 

He must have found it though, as he finally answers, “Not exactly, but I have ideas.”

“Which are?” Batman prompts. 

“Nothing good.” (Tim resists the urge to say, “No, duh.”) “I heard you had a run in with Scarecrow recently?” 

Batman continues to look flatly at Jason, but Tim can’t hide his shock, because Todd laughs cruelly. “Villains talk, Replacement.” 

“Hood,” Tim says, but again, Batman cuts him off. 

“Not here. We should talk in private.”

Tim turns, already following Batman, his training taking over. He half expects Hood to put up a fight, to say fuck you to Batman, but Hood must want to get to the bottom of things as badly as Tim does because he just nods and tells them he’ll meet them at the cave, and then speeds away on his bike.

It’s the thought of sex trafficking, Tim thinks as he slides into the passenger seat of the car and feels it roar to life. Jason always went the hardest on rapists, molesters, and all those alike. Tim may have grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’s not ignorant. He knows what happens to homeless kids on the streets of Gotham, and how most of them manage to stay alive the way they do. 

It’s never been confirmed to Tim, and it’s really none of his business anyway, but he can’t help but wonder, but thinking those kinds of thoughts about Todd makes him too human in Tim’s mind so he doesn’t think about it anymore. 

Despite Todd being on a bike, Bruce and Tim still manage to beat him to the cave. They’re back earlier than predicted, but it’s not like Gotham needed much patrol today. They wait until they can hear the roar of Jason’s bike entering through the “secret” batcave entrance, and then there he is. 

(With Tim. In a confined place. He tries not to think about it.)

Batman turns to Tim as Jason enters the cave. “What do you know, Hood?”

“People talk.” Jason shrugs, looks at the chairs like he considers sitting, but doesn’t make a move towards one. “Things like hallucinations but never getting hit with fear gas. People getting taken, but returning home with no memory. That kind of thing.”

“We already know that,” Tim says, and Batman stills him with a hand on his shoulder.

“You wouldn’t be talking to us if you don’t have anything to add to what you know we already know.” Batman steps in front of Tim before Todd can lunge at him, because Lazarus PIt or not, Todd looks ready to kill Tim. 

(A part of Tim wants to tell Todd that he’s not even Robin anymore, and why isn’t Jason trying to kill Damian? It’s stupid though, Tim knows, because the Lazarus Pit no longer holds Jason under the influence, and Jason knows Damian is Bruce’s real son.)

“I heard rumors about Penguin,” Jason admits. “I can’t be sure, but I think he’s behind all of this. He’s using the others to help in an elaborate sex trafficking scheme.”

Honestly, it makes sense. Scarecrow and Riddler never went down the sex trafficking route before, but Penguin has. Crane and Nygma were also both easy to manipulate, especially by someone like Penguin, who had the means to do so. Penguin focused more on money, on power, but Crane and Nygma wanted to be seen as real villains instead of just nuisances. 

If Penguin could promise them all the acknowledgement and recognition they wanted, and all they had to do was help him, it probably didn’t take much convincing on the others to agree. 

Tim’s connecting the pieces, and he knows Batman just did, too. It still didn’t explain why it was so quiet, but Tim feels like they put together at least half of the puzzle now.

“Red Robin, get Hood the reports. He should look them over.”

Tim nods at Bruce and brings the reports up on the monitor, but he doesn’t sit in the chair. He hopes Bruce wiped it down after this morning-he also doesn’t want Hood behind him, unable to see him. He’s not scared of Hood, just cautious. Reasonable.

“Here.” Tim clicks on the first one and lets Hood read it over before switching to the second. They do this for a few minutes until Todd has read them all. 

“Fuck,” Todd swears as Tim closes out the last report. “B, this does not look good.”

Batman nods, and Tim can’t help to agree. It does not look good at all, and Tim does not like the idea of villains teaming up. 

“I know,” Batman responds. “We’ll have to get to the bottom of this, but I need help. Will you work the case with us?”

Todd looks at Tim first, running his eyes up and down over Tim, who barely manages to resist a shiver before he turns back to Batman. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. It’ll be just like old times.” The end was obviously sarcastic, but Batman nods anyway. 

Tim wants to scream. Working this case with Todd was less than ideal. Tim can barely handle being around Dick and Damian for the weekend. Who knows how long this case will take? However, Tim is a professional, and he can do his job, so he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t voice his complaints about how uneasy he is at the thought of working with Todd.

Just get the case done, Tim tells himself, and then you won’t have to work with him ever again. God, this weekend sucked, and all Tim wants to do is go back to his apartment and crawl underneath the covers and never come out again. 

After that, there’s not much else to talk about, not yet anyway, not until they get more puzzle pieces, so Batman bids Todd a goodnight, who just grunts before hopping back onto his bike and speeding away again.

Then, Tim can see the moment Batman turns back into Bruce. All the tension seems to leave his body and even with the suit on, he just seems like a middle-aged man.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asks, and it takes a moment for Tim to realize he’s talking to him.

“Yeah,” Tim answers. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Bruce looks at Tim and doesn’t say anything. Tim resists the urge to squirm underneath his gaze and doesn’t say anything himself. 

Finally, Bruce relents. “Alright. Why don’t you go take a shower?”

“You’re not going to take one?” Tim asks before he realizes what he’s saying, then flushes red but doesn’t take it back.

The showers are communal and offer many layers of privacy, and they used to shower together after patrol when Tim first moved to the manor. Tim realizes that he and Bruce haven’t showered together since they fucked, and it’s not like he wants to shower with Bruce, but he doesn’t want things to be weird. 

He wants things to be the same as they were without having to psychoanalyze things like why Bruce doesn’t want to shower with him anymore. 

It hurts, just a little. 

“I guess I should shower, too,” Bruce finally answers after the silence stretches too long. 

It’s not the answer Tim was looking for, but they head into the showers, and Tim doesn’t think before he steps into the same shower stall as Bruce and sinks to his knees. (Maybe this is why Bruce didn’t want to shower with him in the first place but that can’t be it, because Bruce willingly jerked Tim off just this morning.)

“Tim,” Bruce (no Batman, because he’s still in the suit and his voice has darkened) says.

“Just this once.” Tim starts to work on his own suit, careful to undo all the zippers. “Payback for this morning.” 

“Alfred-”

“Doesn’t know we’re home early.” Tim shrugs off his mask first, then finally undoes the rest of his suit and kicks it off.

Bruce sighs, but he allows Tim to undress him. “Is this because we saw Jason?” Bruce asks it gently, but Tim’s head snaps up to look at Bruce. 

“Don’t bring him up when I'm about to have your dick in my mouth,” Tim snaps. 

He really doesn’t want to answer Bruce. Is it? He can’t lie to himself, seeing Jason did spook him, but that’s too much psychoanalysis for the night, so Tim licks a stripe up Bruce’s cock before sucking the tip into his mouth. 

Bruce doesn’t moan, just exhales loudly. (He never seems to want to show Tim how much he enjoys the sex, too.) “Are you sure?” 

Tim pulls off long enough to say, “Let me set the pace, and don’t come in my mouth,” before he sinks back down onto Bruce’s cock. 

They don’t talk again, but Bruce smiles at him when they’re done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, very plot heavy, but I promise more porn is coming. Do you guys like the longer chapters? I prefer them, but let me know if you'd like shorter ones.


	4. Cling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph just shakes her head and they cling to each other.
> 
> Bonus: Timeline, what's a timeline? Ma'am, this is a Wendy's fanfiction.

There’s a few things Tim has figured out since they started whatever this whole thing is. Somewhere between riding Bruce and getting Thai food afterwards, Tim thinks of them.

“No, no,” Bruce says into the phone, “I think it’s an excellent idea. Say, why don’t you write me up a report?” He gives a fake laugh, his eyes focused on the man on his lap. “Excellent. I’ll see you next Tuesday. Alright, goodbye.” 

Tim finally lets out the moan he was holding as he rolls his hips forward. Doing so brings Bruce’s cock against that knot inside of him and he cries out, hips already snapping back and forth again.

Bruce rests his hands around Tim’s hips and grips hard, encouraging Tim to move up and down, back and forth. The friction is delicious, and Tim’s head comes to rest on Bruce’s shoulders. They’re so close, chests pressed together, and they’re mostly still dressed, both of their pants and underwear dropped down to their knees.

“Like that,” Bruce murmurs, snapping his hips up so that they match Tim’s pace.

Tim rises to meet Bruce’s thrusts with purpose. He’s never been on top before, but it’s something he’s finding he quite likes. He groans and snaps his ass down, loving the way he can feel all of Bruce at this angle. His hands grip Bruce’s shoulders, anchoring himself to the older man as if he was his life line.

“You were so good,” Bruce tells him, his hand going up to do what it seems it loves most: pulling Tim’s hair. “You were so patient.”

One: Bruce likes pulling Tim’s hair. 

“Was hard,” Tim manages to grunt in a not so sexy voice, but that’s okay, because Bruce is already attacking his neck and pulling his hair and it looks like he doesn’t seem to mind. 

“But you did good.” Bruce’s tongue runs up the column of Tim’s neck. Just before he bites, he says, “So perfect for me.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Tim babbles. 

Two: Bruce likes giving Tim’s hickies, and Tim thinks that he must like seeing Tim struggle to conceal and hide them. He must like the way only he knows that they're there, under Tim’s shirt collar.

Three: he likes being called Daddy. He has never came out and said it, but he doesn't have to, not with the way he encourages Tim to call him it, the way he always responds eagerly whenever Tim does.

(Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders…Does Bruce get off on the fact that Tim is his adoptive son? Or does he just like being called Daddy in general? Tim’ll never ask though, and Bruce probably would never bring it up, so they leave it at that. It’s not like they are related, anyway.)

“Such a good boy for me.” 

This really wasn’t what Tim had planned for today, a normal Tuesday. Tim was a professional: when he was at work, he was Tim Drake, CEO. And he acted like a CEO. He kept track of the entire business and was proud to do so

So no, he didn’t really plan to fuck Bruce in his office on this particular morning, especially since Tim was never really sure when Bruce would show up anyway, but it’s fine. Tim’s certainly not complaining. 

“You always do so good for me.” Bruce’s hand rubs Tim’s back, up and down in a soothing pace, as if comforting him. 

Bruce doesn’t do dirty talk, not really. He praises instead, always telling Tim what a good boy he is, how much he appreciates Tim, how much he needs Tim. Tim’s not sure if that’s how he usually talks in bed, or if it’s just for Tim, but Tim likes it. God, he likes it so much. 

“Can I-” Tim doesn’t even get the words out before Bruce is shaking his head. 

“No, not yet.” 

Four: Bruce is always about self control. Even in sex, he has to have control. He can’t control when his partners moan or the way they react, but he can control when they come. Bruce is really into orgasm delay/denial. Tim can’t come until Bruce lets him.

This part kind of hurts, and Tim still isn’t sure if he likes it or not, but he groans anyway, licks his lips, and slams his hips down. Bruce growls and tights his hold on Tim’s hips. His fingers are gripping so hard that Tim thinks they might bruise. 

“Not yet, babybird.” 

“Please,” Tim begs, and outside of sex Tim is not a beggar. He used to be, before Bruce died and he grew up. He used to beg for his parents love, used to beg for his life when someone was trying to kill him, used to beg for Bruce to come home, for Dick not to take Robin from him. When Bruce didn't come home, and Dick still took Robin, he stopped begging. It clearly didn't work. Now, he finds he doesn’t mind begging when it's like this. “Please, Daddy, I-”

“You’re so good. You can wait a little longer.” 

Tim doesn’t have a choice anyway, because Bruce will delay him until he decided to let Tim come. So Tim groans and continues to bounce, hair falling into his eyes and blocking his vision. Bruce in turn grips Tim and encourages him with small kisses. 

It’s only when Tim feels his cock start to swell in an almost painful way does he start to really beg, the words escaping his lips before he can stop them. “Please, oh my god, please, fuck, I’m so close, nnhhhah.”

Five: Bruce always makes Tim come first, and when he does, it is worth it. 

“Okay,” Bruce finally says, voice getting darker, and that’s all Tim needs. 

Sobbing, he all but convulses on Bruce’s lap, hips still jerking as he shoots, come splattering into the condom he’s wearing. He didn’t want to wear the condom, and why would he? His dick isn’t the one going inside anything, but Bruce had insisted for this round and he suddenly understood. They were both wearing nice suits, and come is a bitch to clean up. It makes for an easy and clean clean up. Sometimes sex isn't all so sexy and that's okay. Tim's finally having enough sex to realize that. 

Come shoots in his ass, and Bruce grunts, pulling Tim’s hair in time with his own orgasm. Tim’s scalp tingles and he can’t help but groan at the sensation. Fuck, he loves this so much. 

If Tim really thinks about it- and he’s been thinking about a lot of things recently- he’ll consider why Bruce keeps allowing this to happen, and he wonders how long he’ll let it go for. Tim certainly doesn’t want to stop, and Bruce doesn’t seem to either. So how long will this last? Is this something that will last forever? Or will they eventually crash and burn, doom from the start for this to never work?

Tim never lets himself think about it for long.

Condoms are soon tied and thrown in the trash, pants and underwear are pulled up, and hair is flattened. Tissues are gathered and tossed, and ties redone. It smells like sex in Bruce’s office, but there’s nothing they can do about that. It’s fine, anyway. Tim knows Bruce’s schedule and he doesn’t have any scheduled meetings today. No one will come in.

Bruce is still slowly easing his way back into the company, and rarely visits the office. Tim keeps waiting for him to take the company away from him. He took so much from him already, what’s one more thing? But no, he seems okay with letting Tim take over, and hasn’t brought it up. Even when he visits, Tim is still in control, and Bruce seems to just look over how they’re doing. 

“Are you hungry?” Bruce asks. He snaps his wrist watch in place. Tim was unaware he had even taken it off. 

“Sure.” He wasn’t. He was mostly just tired. 

“Let’s break for lunch.”

He says break as if they were in a business meeting and not just fucking in his office.

In the past, they never ate lunch together. They both were always too busy, and Bruce usually ordered something in his office while Tim usually skipped lunch altogether. They do a lot of things they didn’t normally do now, though. Sometimes Tim doesn’t mind it, but sometimes he does.

They grab lunch at a Thai place Tim really likes. It occurs to Tim that he doesn’t even know if Bruce likes Thai food, or if they’re just grabbing it for his sake. Why are they doing this? They don’t need to eat food just because Tim likes it. It’s not like they’re dating. 

In fact, Tim doesn’t want to date Bruce. That would be so . . . weird. Like dating his- No. 

“How’s your curry?” Bruce asks after they’ve gotten their food and had a chance to taste it. 

“Good,” Tim responds, spooning some of the green curry into his mouth. “How’s your shrimp?”

Bruce smiles, a twinkle in his eye that Tim hasn’t seen in a very long while. “Tastes like coconut.”

“It’s coconut shrimp,” Tim answers dryly. Bruce snorts.

This is okay. This is more fatherly than a date. This is what they used to do. In the beginning, Tim didn’t start off to be a son for Bruce. His parents were still alive and Todd’s death was still weighing hard on his shoulders. Tim was Robin, Batman’s partner. Tim was not Bruce’s son. 

But, then his parents died, and Tim had nowhere to go, and there was Bruce ready with adoption papers. Tim never did ask if he had had those already printed and ready to go, or if he just expedited them when he found out Tim’s parents died. Either way, it didn’t matter. 

Even after Tim had moved into the manor, things were still slightly weird. It took months for Tim to finally allow himself to see Bruce as a dad and less as a partner, and then Bruce “died” anyway. Still, in those few short months, Bruce was Tim’s dad, but for most of the timeline of knowing Bruce, he had been his partner.

So maybe this is okay? Bruce wasn’t his dad for very long, and is really only his dad on paper. So it’s okay that they have sex, because Bruce really isn’t his dad, right? 

“I can hear you overthinking miles away.” Bruce spears a shrimp with his fork (and Bruce would use a fork at a Thai place, wouldn’t he?) and scrapes it off on Tim’s plate. He points to it. “Try that.” Then he looks back at Tim. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Tim tires the shrimp, chewing slowly to gather his answer at first. He considers telling Bruce about his dilemma, about how he doesn’t want Bruce to be his dad but he does at the same time, how he wants to keep fucking him but doesn't want to go on dates with him, how he wants these kind of things to be fatherly, but wants Bruce to fuck him until he can’t walk straight the next day. He wants to be his partner and his son and it’s starting to really scare Tim how he can’t differentiate between the two these days. 

He can’t tell Bruce that. He knows Bruce: Bruce would overthink it and blame the sex, would say it’s not healthy and hurting Tim and end things, and then where would Tim be? Back to having nothing to himself, watching as Bruce chooses Dick and Damian all over again. 

“It’s good,” he finally answers Bruce, swallowing over a lump of fried coconut. Something in him swoops as Bruce uses his spoon to scoop up some of Tim’s curry, but he calms himself. This isn’t dating, fathers share food, partners share food. Bruce wouldn’t risk anything sexual (romantic?) in public, and if the public looked in, they would see Bruce Wayne catching a late lunch with his third son. “I like my curry better though, so stop eating it.” 

He swats Bruce’s hand away when the other man goes for a second spoonful. With the same spoon. Gross. Double dipping is gross, and that’s normally something he’d protest at, but how ridiculous would that be? Tim regularly has Bruce’s cock in his mouth, Bruce’s tongue in his mouth, the time Bruce had turned him around, got him on all fours, and licked his sloppy hole until he cried from over stimulation. 

They were so past germs. 

“I should have gotten the curry,” Bruce hums, and then he sticks his spoon into Tim’s curry again, to which Tim rules his eyes and stabs at the now abandoned shrimp sitting on Bruce’s plate. 

“You don’t even like Thai.”

Bruce raises one eyebrow. “No, but you do.”

So, that confirms it at least. Tim tells himself not to panic, because fathers sacrifice their own needs for their children all the time, but so do people in relationships and Tim is suddenly so mad at himself. What does he want? Does he want Bruce to be his dad or his partner? 

The answer, he thinks, is neither and both, all at once and none at all. 

“I didn’t think you’d remember.” 

“Why would I forget? You don’t eat much. I tend to remember when you do.” Bruce chuckles and smiles at Tim, and when he reaches for Tim’s curry one last time, Tim gives in and finally swaps plates with Bruce altogether. 

He likes coconut shrimp, at least. Not as much as his curries, but he does. He likes both. At least he knows that.

“Um, excuse me?”

Tim turns to look into the eyes of the young girl who had taken their orders. The girl was probably in her early 20’s, obviously not in school as she’s working lunch on a Tuesday afternoon, probably a bit older than Tim. She nervously plays with her apron, eyes not on Tim but Bruce. Bruce smiles kindly at her and she gulps but reaches into her apron and pulls out the notepad she used to take their orders. 

“Um. If it’s okay-Uh. I can come back-Um. Sorry, uh, can I- I just want an autograph?” She flushes in embarrassment, but it’s not the first time Tim has seen someone get flustered around Brucie Wayne, and he highly doubted it would be the last. 

The girl’s a nervous wreck, but Tim has to give her credit for working up the courage to ask. 

“Sure thing.” Bruce turns into Brucie in seconds flat, smiling wild, and playing coy as he takes the girl’s notepad and pen and scribbles his name with a flourish on the pad. “Who should I make it out to?”

The girl flushes and won’t meet his eyes, mumbling out, “Rose.” 

“Here you go, Rosie.” 

And the girl all but squeaks out a thank you before running for safety behind the counter. Tim watches her go before turning back to Bruce. 

“That was my first autograph since I’ve been back,” Bruce tells Tim, and he says it in a bright mood, but Tim knows Bruce by now. His hands clench his water glass, and his eyes are downcast. 

“The public missed you,” Tim tells him. 

The family may have missed Bruce Wayne, but the public mourned Brucie Wayne, thought dead only to rejoice when they were told the cover of Bruce faking his death for witness protection, only to come back when the bastards he had to testify against were finally put away. 

“A lot of people missed me. I missed so much.”

And that's another thing too: Bruce talks to Tim now. He hadn't before they started fucking. He had kept his feelings to himself, and while this is hardly a big confession, Tim can read the undertones because Bruce allows him to. He's allowing Tim to read between the lines, to realize that Bruce maybe isn't handling being back as good as he's pretending to. 

If they stopped, Bruce wouldn't talk to Tim anymore. 

Tim shrugs. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Not really. Tim had gotten so mad in the beginning, mad at Bruce for leaving them, but he never blamed Bruce. 

Bruce doesn’t say anything for a long minute. When he does speak again, all he says is, “Why don’t we get some boba tea to go?” 

It’s clear Bruce doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, so he lets Bruce buy him a boba milk tea, (is it normal for a Thai place to sell bubble tea? Tim isn’t sure.) and drinks half of it, only to throw it up later when he sees the headline in the newspaper a few hours later:

Bruce Wayne’s Return to Public: Nice Lunch Outing with Son Timothy.

***

“You know the Riddler and Penguin used to be a thing right?”

It takes a second for Tim to realize Todd is addressing him. He blinks down at the monitor before slowly turning to Todd. “What?”

Todd points to the file of Riddler on the monitor, pulled up right next to the file of Penguin. “Years ago, way before Batman.”

Huh. That . . . was interesting. And gross. Tim blinks up at Todd, not even bothering to hide his sock. “Huh, I did not expect that. Why did they break up?”

Todd rolls his eyes at Tim and crosses his arms. “How am I supposed to know, Replacement?” When he says replacement, there’s no bite to it, not anymore. Instead, it almost sounded like fondness.

“Huh,” Tim repeats. “Well, I mean, that helps the theory that Penguin is behind this whole thing.”

“Yeah, that’s why I brought it up.” At Tim’s look, Todd leers at him and explains, “What? You think we were gossiping like old hags? Yes, Replacement, because I truly care if Nygma used to get dicked down by Cobblepot.”

“Why do you assume Nygma bottomed?” Tim asks as he zooms in on the Riddler file. Batman doesn’t have it listed that they used to be a thing, but Tim is inclined to believe Todd. 

Todd doesn’t answer Tim. He just looks at Tim as if he can’t seem to know what to do with Tim. Tim knows the feeling. 

“Anyway,” Tim says after a long period of silence, “it would be easier to convince him to work with Penguin then, if they’re old, uh, friends, but Scarecrow would probably need some convincing.”

Todd shrugs. “Maybe it’s a throuple.”

Tim snorts then freezes. He takes a shaky breath, turns away from Todd. He shouldn’t be laughing at Jason’s jokes. Jesus, they’re not friends. Right now they’re just . . . coworkers? He knows he’s being ridiculous, but he can’t help the rush of panic he feels coursing through him when Todd (no, Jason?) hesitantly smiles at him. 

Tim turns back to the files, heart pounding. He suddenly hates the cold air of the Batcave against his skin, wishes they were upstairs, somewhere warmer. Todd maybe walks away, or starts to say something, Tim really doesn’t know because Bruce finally comes back into the Batcave from where he took a break to go deal with whatever issues Damian had. 

“How’s the brat?” Todd asks as Bruce comes to stand behind Tim. 

“Fine. He was upset because Dick decided to come back to the manor this weekend.”

“Dick’s coming back?” Tim asks, frowning. Fucking Dick. He was such a . . well, he was such a dick.

“He wants to help with the case.”

“We don’t need his help,” Tim tells Bruce. He wasn’t even being petty or anything. They already had Todd. The three of them could handle it. 

“I agree with the replacement.” Todd points at Tim and shakes his head. “Dick just wants to make sure you don’t let me kill him.” 

Bruce sends Todd a sharp look. Tim’s entire body feels like it’s on the edge of a cliff: ready to jump back, ready to jump off. Weightless and heavy at the same time. 

“What?” Todd shrugs innocently. “I’m not going to, obviously.” 

“That’s good to know,” Tim tells him dryly. He clears his throat and tenses as Bruce sets a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs it off and stands. “I need to head home now, it’s getting late.” 

When he finally faces Bruce and Todd, he sees Bruce’s blank face and Todd’s confused one. “What?” Todd asks, but it’s more directed at Bruce than Tim. “What does he mean, home?”

“I moved out,” Tim tells him. 

“Why don’t you stay the night?” Bruce asks. 

“Why did you move out?” Todd demands, arms crossing. He looks from Tim to Bruce. “Or did someone kick you out?”

“Of course I didn’t kick Tim out,” Bruce tells Todd. “He moved out because he wanted to.”

“But you let him!”

“I couldn’t exactly make him stay, Jason. Tim is a grown adult.”

It was weird, watching a conversation about you happening right in front of you as if you weren’t in the room. There was something deeper behind Bruce and Todd’s conversation, but Tim couldn’t place it.

“This is because of your demon brat,” Todd all but spits at Bruce and Tim’s head is starting to feel a little fuzzy. 

It seemed like Todd was mad at Bruce for letting Tim move out, for letting Damian drive that final push into Tim that caused him to flee. But why would Todd care? And why was Bruce so defensive? Have they talked about him before when he wasn’t there? It’s possible, Todd has been dropping by unannounced the past week to help with the case. Tim’s sure they talked, but why? Why talk about him?

“Tim moved on his own,” Bruce repeats and that’s not quite true, is it? Bruce knows that, so why is he lying to Todd? Does he not want Todd to know why Tim left? Or, a dark voice in the back of his head tells him, he’s lying because then he’ll have to tell Todd what he had to do to get Tim back. 

“Um, I’m right here,” Tim tells them. 

He is ignored. 

“That is so like you, Bruce,” Todd seethes. “You’re always going to pick your real son over the rest of us.”

That’s not true Tim wants to yell at Jason. It’s not. Bruce picks Tim every single time they fuck. If he wasn't picking Tim, then why was he fucking him?

“You’re all my real sons,” Bruce answers Jason back in that calm voice of his that means he’s seconds away from losing his cool. “I don’t pick any of you over the other.”

“Bullshit!” 

Tim’s really not sure what’s happening until after it happens. It’s all so fast. One second Bruce and Todd are glaring hard at each other, each not saying what they really want to say yet somehow saying it all at once. They’re both seething at one another, fists tight at their sides. 

Todd says one more thing, something that Tim can’t quite make out through the pounding in his ears. He thinks Todd says, “At least I died before you replaced me, Bruce.” 

But that doesn’t make sense, because it sounds like Jason is speaking up for Tim, and why would he do that? Jason hates Tim. 

And Bruce. Bruce says something too, but Tim completely misses that and can’t even guess it. All he knows is that whatever he says must be the final push before Jason’s fist is coming in contact with Bruce’s cheek bone.

Someone yelps. Tim thinks it’s him. 

Bruce could easily doge the fist but he doesn’t. He lets it make contact, let it snap his head back, causing him to stumble. 

Tim feels like he might throw up. Someone screams. 

The rest is even more of a blur. Todd curses and apologizes, Bruce tries to hug Todd, Todd shakes his head and stalks off, the roar of the motorcycle echoing in the otherwise silent Batcave. Tim turns and flees as well. 

He can hear Bruce calling his name and later he’ll register that Bruce chose to come after him and not Todd. Tim feels so sick. 

He barely makes it to a bathroom before he’s throwing up, only he hadn’t eaten much that day and it’s mostly stomach acid and bile. It’s not a pleasant feeling. Why? Why was Todd so mad at Bruce? Why did it seem like he was sticking up for Tim? That’s not their dynamic. That’s not how they work.

A soothing hand rubs circles onto his back as he heaves again. The hand is big and warm, and it spans the space between his shoulder blades. Tim doesn’t even have to turn around to know it’s Bruce. 

“Are you okay?” he asks once Tim stops throwing up his insides into the toilet. 

“Fine,” he gasps. He sits back, allowing his back to fall into Bruce’s chest, who wraps his arms around him. He feels dizzy and weird. 

“Let’s get you into bed.”

Tim hadn’t even realized he made it into his own room, into his own on suite bathroom. He allows Bruce to strip him out of his clothes, put him into pajamas and into his bed. He closes his eyes, his skin feeling calmly. He feels rather than sees Bruce wetting a washcloth and placing it on his forehead.

Bruce must leave and return, because suddenly there’s a straw in between his top and bottom teeth, and warm gingerale floods his mouth. 

Tim takes a few more sips, catches his breath. Then he sits up and nearly throws up again at the motion. “Home,” he gasps, desperately tugging on Bruce’s shirt sleeve. “I-I need to go home.”

“Stay here for the night.”

Tim shakes his head, and then lies down again as the room spins. “I have to feed the cat,” he tells Bruce weakly. 

Bruce shakes his head, smiling gently down at Tim. “You don’t have a cat.”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right.”

They lapse into silence, Tim lying in bed sucking his gingerale, Bruce running his hands through Tim’s hand. “I’m sorry,” Bruce says eventually. 

Tim would shrug if he could. “Not your fault. How’s your eye?”

Bruce gingerly touches his eye and flinches. He sighs. “I’ll live.” He starts to stand but Tim panics and grabs his wrist. 

“Stay,” he begs. “Please?”  
This isn't what they do. Bruce doesn't stay and Tim doesn't ask him to. 

Hesitation flashes in Bruce’s eyes, and Tim squeezes his wrist again. A lot is going unsaid, Tim thinks. 

“Okay. Just until you fall asleep.” 

There's a lot Tim doesn't understand, but he gets that message at least. Any longer after that would look suspicious. Tim scoops over and Bruce looks at Tim’s closed door before crawling into the bed with Tim. It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep. 

***

“You have ketchup on your face,” Tim tells Dick, before eating a bite of his own eggs. 

“It’s very unbecoming of you, Grayson,” Damian adds. 

Dick wipes his face (and misses half of the ketchup) and Tim eats a piece of bacon. It’s Saturday morning, and Tim (and Damian) is not happy to see Dick at the manor. Again. Wasn’t the whole point was that Damian went to Dick’s apartment on the weekends? Why does Dick have to come to the manor?

“He didn’t mean it,” Bruce explains to Dick. “He was just upset.” 

Bruce’s eye had mostly healed within the week, but was still bruised by the time Dick showed up Saturday morning. Before Bruce could explain, Domain had jumped in and told Dick that Todd had punched Bruce. 

Dick did not take it well. 

“Upset?” Dick asks.

“Over the case,” Bruce lies and Alfred’s head snaps up to lower his eyes at Bruce. No night time talk outside the cave is the rule, but Dick had wanted to know why Todd punched Bruce. As they were, they were already pushing it.

Dick frowns and stabs a piece of scrambled egg. “I’m not comfortable with Jason working this case with you.” He glances briefly at Tim. “He . . . gets too into it.”

He’s worried Jason might kill again. Tim huffs and stabs his own eggs. 

“Jason will be on his best behavior,” Bruce answers. 

“It’ll be good for Master Jason to be around,” Alfred says to no one in particular. “I do quite miss the boy.” 

And Dick won’t argue with Alfred, so he just glares into his eggs as if they personally offended him. 

“You still have ketchup on your cheek,” Tim tells him. Personally, Tim likes his eggs fried, not scrambled, and with a bit of hot sauce. 

Dick glares at Tim, as if Tim personally put the ketchup on his cheek himself. Tim eats one last bite before standing, drawing the attention to him. 

“I better go. Steph will be waiting for me. Thanks for breakfast, Alfred.”

“My pleasure, Master Tim.” 

“Steph?” Dick frowns again, eyes rising to meet Tim. Tim wants to tell him to stop frowning or he’ll get wrinkles. 

“Steph,” Tim answers slowly, as if talking to a toddler. “You know, blonde, about yay height, my ex girlfriend, ex Robin? You may have heard of her.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Oh ha ha. You think you’re so funny.”

“I know I’m funny.” Tim stands to bring his dishes to the sink. 

“How long will you be with Steph?” Dick asks and Tim shrugs. 

Why was Dick so interested in Tim’s life? He wasn’t his brother anymore: he doesn’t have that right. 

“I don’t know,” Tim snaps at him, feeling annoyed. “Why do you care?”

Dick’s cheeks turn a rosy red as Damian and Bruce turn to Dick, also curious about why he seemed to care about Tim so much. “I thought we could hang out this afternoon,” Dick answers in a low voice. He won’t meet Tim’s eyes. He’s upset.

Tim was not expecting that answer. He thought he had made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to hang out with Dick again. Dick didn’t just get to pretend everything was okay after a year of complete hell. One apology does not make up for that, will never make up for that. 

“Perhaps Master Tim can spend time with you tomorrow afternoon.” Alfred always could sense tension a mile away. He smiles at Dick, then at Tim. “Give Miss Brown my regards, will you?”

Tim nods. “Sure thing, Alfred.”

He all but rushes out of the kitchen, eager to leave the conversation, but also because he wanted to get to Steph. He really missed her, and when he finally sees her, they hug for at least a minute straight, maybe longer. 

They get lost in each other’s arms, and maybe if he was 15 again and they were dating he’d find it romantic but it’s not. It’s desperate and they’re both crying ugly tears, and it’s just been so long since they’ve seen each other in person. 

Steph’s curly hair ends up in Tim’s mouth but he doesn’t even care. He just grips onto her back harder, lets his head fall into the crook of her shoulder, and breathes in her strawberry shampoo. When they finally release each other, their eyes are red rimmed and they both desperately need a tissue. 

“I’ve missed you,” Steph tells him.

“I’ve missed you, too.” 

Steph hiccups, the sound wet and ugly, and wipes her nose on the back of her shirt sleeve. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

Oh yeah. They were having their little reunion in the doorway of Steph’s apartment. As they step inside, Tim can see that not much has changed. There’s a new nightstand by the couch, and the kitchen table has a new dent in it, but that’s about it. 

“My mom’s at work,” Steph tells Tim as she grabs two sodas from the fridge. “It’s just us.”

They set up in Steph’s room, just like they used to, sitting on the floor with their backs against Steph’s bed, pops and bags of chips and various other snacks in a circle around them. They get Steph’s old X-Box going, and for a while they don’t talk. 

It’s just so nice to be in each other’s company again. Tim hadn’t realized how lonely he’s been until he’s with his friend again. It’s nice to have a sense of normal in his new life. Things may kind of suck right now, but at least here, with Steph in her childhood bedroom, he can pretend everything is okay. 

Eventually, they turn off the X-Box and then they just talk. They talk about Steph and what she's been up to, they talk about her college classes and how she kind of hates them and wants to come back as Spoiler. Tim tells her it’s weird having Bruce back after he’s been gone for so long, and he tells her about how Kon is back from the dead too but they haven’t had much contact yet as Kon is still getting used to it.

She snorts at that. “I know what that's like.” 

“Maybe I’ll give you his number,” Tim tells her dryly. "You two could talk about it."

She cocks her head to the side, as if she’s actually considering it. “Isn’t he like, a big man whore?”

“Oh yeah, for sure. He’ll definitely try to sleep with you.”

Steph pauses for a moment, mouth tight, before shrugging. “A super trying to fuck me? I can live with that. Introduce us sometime.”

And Tim laughs and tells her sure, and doesn’t even want to think of that particular dynamic duo. It’s good to laugh and joke with her though.

“Speaking of friends, where’s Cass?”

Oh, Cass. God, Tim misses her so much, too. If Dick and Damian and Jason weren’t his brothers, then that’s fine, but Cass was his sister, will always be his sister in Tim’s eyes. But she hadn’t wanted to stay, and Tim couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t wanted to stay, either. 

He tried reaching out when Bruce came back, but she hadn’t responded. Bruce tried reaching out too, but he got the same response. Cass had to know he was back, and alive, but maybe she needed time. Maybe she didn’t want to come back. Tim didn’t know, but he missed her.

“She’s in Hong Kong,” Tim finally responds. He won’t meet Steph’s eyes. “She doesn’t-she won’t talk to us.”

“She needs time,” Stephanie says gently and Tim knows that’s true but it still hurts. 

“I’m half tempted to go and bring her back myself,” Tim says honestly, and it’s true, he’s considered it many times. 

“I’d go with you. I miss her.”

And they can joke about it all they want but they both know that it would just make things worse. Cass needs to come to them whenever she’s ready. But when she does, Tim will welcome her with open arms. 

They weren’t always close, not because they didn’t like each other but just because they always seemed to be two ships sailing in different directions, only to pass at a lighthouse on a full moon. Eventually though, they got to know each other, bonded over their bad parents and their hesitation to accept Bruce as a dad, and eventually, they started to sail in each other’s directions. 

“She’ll come to us when she’s ready,” Tim says eventually and Steph nods. 

She pushes a bowl of pretzels out of the way, scootches next to him so that their arms were touching, and lays her head on his shoulder. 

“I’ve missed this so much,” she tells him. 

Tim closes his eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Simp.” But she closes her eyes and they just breathe for a second. 

And it might be her strawberry shampoo, or the fact that he’s seeing her for the first time in what seems like forever, or that she’s the only person he’s seen outside of both his jobs and his family. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s the one person Tim has always been able to talk to, even when they were dating, even after they broke up, even after she faked her death. 

Maybe it’s the natural sunlight coming through her window, or the squishmallows on her bed, or the fact that Tim just feels so relaxed for the first time since Bruce was lost in space. 

Looking back on it years later, he still wouldn’t know what compelled him to turn to Steph, dislodge her head from his shoulder, look her in the eyes, and tell her in a whisper, 

“I’m sleeping with Bruce.”

Steph blinks. 

Then blinks again. Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “What?” 

Tim’s throat feels like he tried to swallow a couple cotton balls. He actually had once, when he was a toddler, and he still remembers the nanny shrieking as she forced his mouth open and reached in to yank them out of his throat. He can still taste her acrylic nails pinching the cotton out of his throat years later. 

He wants to take it back. He doesn’t know why he told her, and he wishes he hadn’t, but it’s already out now and there’s nothing to do to take it back. Steph may be shocked and not processing what he said yet, but she heard him. 

Tim started this conversation and now he’s going to have to see it through to the bitter end.

He swallows around the lump in his throat, tries to talk. “I-we-I mean-” Can’t think of the words, closes his mouth, clears his throat, tries again. “Bruce and me. We’ve fucked. Are fucking.” And it’s so vulgar but it’s the only way he can think of to explain things. 

“You’ve fucked?” Stephanie asks. Her eyes are huge and she’s biting her lip. “What the fuck? What the actual fuck, Tim? Is this-is this your idea of a prank?”

And Tim wishes it were, but it isn’t so he shakes his head, digs his fingers into the meat of his thighs, and presses his nails so tight that they’ll leave little crescent like marks. 

“No prank. Bruce and me, we, well. It’s complicated.”

“Tim.” Stephanie’s looking at him like he’s just killed a puppy in front of her. “Tim, what the fuck? This isn’t Facebook, what do you mean it’s complicated?”

Tim winces and continues to dig his nails into his thighs. He’s only half aware of the pain. “I guess it’s not complicated after all.”

Stephanie breathes harshly and grabs his hands. She squeezes and forces him to look her in the eyes. “Okay, you need to explain. Explain to me right now. Is he forcing you?”

“No!” He snatches his hands away from hers, appalled that she could even think that. “No, he’d never do that. I want it, okay? I came onto him.”

“And he just let it happen?” Her voice was starting to shriek and Tim flinches. 

“No, he turned me away at first, but I kept pushing.”

“Why? Tim, why would you do that? Why would you want that?”

He tries to see it from her point of view. Tim’s not stupid, far from it. He knows what it looks like. He knows people wouldn’t react well if they found out. It looked so bad. Bruce was Tim’s mentor, his adopted dad. It was wrong. He knew that.

He just couldn’t help to get defensive. Steph was his friend and here she was, judging him. He didn’t judge her when she slept with a deadbeat and got knocked up, did he? No, he didn’t. This wasn’t fair. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know, I just wanted to.” It’s not a good answer, but Tim doesn’t want to explain why. It’s too complicated and this conversation was already giving Tim a headache. Steph wouldn’t understand anyway. 

“Do you realize how crazy you sound!” Steph shakes her head, her curls flying out in a blur of blonde. “Tim, oh my god.”

Tim sighs and brings his knees up to his chest. “I know, Steph, I know how bad this sounds.” But he’s not going to stop. He can’t. He loves having sex with Bruce. He loves that connection that only he has with him. He doesn’t want to stop and he’s not going to. 

Steph must see it on his face, or at least sees the defensiveness in it, because she sighs and shakes her head. “This is so bad, Tim.”

“I know, I know. But you can’t tell. I just-I need this, Steph. I need it so bad, and it’s 100% consensual. It’s okay.”

“It is so not okay, Mr. Timothy.” But her shoulders slump and the fight seems to go out of her. “But I didn’t hang out with you to argue or judge you. I’m sorry.”

Tim shrugs and rests his head on his knees. He’s so tired. “It’s okay. You won’t tell though, right?”

Steph sighs again but he can feel her nodding her head, feels her arms wrap around him. “Fine. Yeah, okay, I won’t tell.”

They breathe in each other for a few minutes. He hates her reaction but he’s so glad he told her. He hadn’t realized it, but it’s been eating him up inside. He needed to tell someone, just one person, and he knows he made the right decision in telling her. He’s not sure why he told her but he’s so glad he did. 

When Tim finally opens his eyes, he’s surprised to see Steph silently crying. He unwraps his knees to wrap his arms around her instead. 

“It’s okay, Steph. I swear it’s okay.”

Steph just shakes her head and they cling to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I had three exams and a bunch of essays I had to do. I know this chapter is kind of slow but shit hits the fan next chapter, so keep an eye out for it. Thanks so much for all the kudos and comments, I'm so happy you guys are enjoying the story so far! Thanks for reading!
> 
> (Also, I'm trying to rewrite the summary for the story because it sucks so don't be surprised if you see it change soon. Again, not beta'd so I apologize for any typos and mistakes.)


	5. Days Gone By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 DAYS BEFORE

In all honesty, Tim really didn’t expect them to go from 0 to 100 on the case in a matter of a day. It felt like they were stagnant for weeks, and then all of the sudden the case picked up and now they’re here. Tim should have seen it coming. Rule number 1 of having a plan: expect for the plan to go wrong.

“Red Robin? Red Robin, can you hear me?”

So, this was what it’s like to die. It wasn’t as bad as Tim had ever thought. Really, it was just like going to sleep. Tim had been so sleepy the past few week-months, really. A permanent sleep sounded so nice . . .

He thinks about his mom. He hadn’t thought about her in so long. He feels so guilty about that, but it wasn’t like she was a good mom. Janet Drake was good at many things, but being a mom was not one of them.

In the end though, she was his mom and he was dying and he wanted her so badly, just wanted to see her again one last time. Suddenly, it didn’t matter what she had done or didn’t do his entire childhood. He missed her so fiercely in this moment that he didn’t want to die until he saw her again. It would be okay if he just saw her again, but he can't, can he? She’s already dead and he’s dying.

Something hard slaps his face and his eyes jerk open to see a red blur in front of him. Red Hood peers down at him, eyes wide and something else hiding behind those blue irises. He looks concerned, scared maybe, but why? Why does it seem like he cares about Tim?

It takes Tim a moment to realize Hood slapped him. That wasn’t very nice of him.

“Red Robin, stay awake.” 

Tim wants to tell Hood he’s not the boss of him, but it doesn’t matter. Tim’s already falling asleep again. He’s so tired, and he’s been so tired for so long. It’s okay to sleep. He feels like he can finally sleep. 

“Batman! Fuck, Batman, I need you NOW!” 

Shut up, Tim tells Hood in his head. I’m trying to sleep. This was so like him.

He doesn’t think again. 

3 DAYS BEFORE

Damian was trying to kill him. Again. Tim thought they had moved on from this at this point, but clearly they haven’t. Tim doesn’t even know what he did this time. 

“Damian!” Tim dodges the knife, nearly ducking just in time before the knife could land in his chest.

Damian stands in front of him, glaring down at Tim, who just has enough time to roll onto his stomach and then roll to the side. Damian has league training, but sometimes his emotions got the best of him and he fought like the kid he was. Thankfully, this was one of those times. 

“Dude!” Dick finally appears, wrapping his arms around Damian and tugging him back. The kid thrashes in his arms, limbs flailing as he tries to escape the hold. It gives Tim enough time to get to his feet and lean over, resting his hands on his knees as he catches his breath. 

“Not cool, dude,” he wheezes at Damian once he finally manages to breathe again. He sounds like that penguin from Toy Story who had a broken voice box and was forgotten about. Was that all Tim was? A broken toy penguin?

Today was such a shit day, and his stomach was hurting so much. It’s been hurting ever since he got to manor Friday night to see Todd and Dick both at the dinner tale. Even the entire week at the WE had been hell, too.

So yeah, the week was bad, Friday was bad, on top of all that it’s been a week since he revealed his secret to Steph and now she’s acting weird, and now it’s Saturday morning and Damian is trying to kill him. How did his life get so bad so fast?

Probably around the time he started fucking his dad. Well, you win some you lose some. You can't win them all.

“I will end you, Drake!” 

There’s many reasons Damian would be trying to kill Tim for, but he can’t think of anything that had changed recently that would set him off. Maybe because he tripped over one of his cats? It really was an accident and hearing the kitty meow in pain had made Tim feel like absolute shit. He made up for it though! He gave the cat like, five cat treats after. Besides, Damian wasn’t even around when he tripped, so how would he know?

“Dami!”

“Release me at once, Dickhead!”

Tim can’t help the laugh that escapes him. He’s not sure who’s more surprised at the name calling: Dick or Damian himself. Damian respected Dick. He looked at Dick as if Dick was his father. Damian may respect Bruce more than anyone else, but Damian loved Dick. As far as Tim knew, he never called Dick anything but Grayson- certainly not an insult like Dickhead. (Though truly, who could resist Dickhead? It was a classic.)

“My heavens!”

Slowly, the three boys turn their attention to the man standing in the entrance way to the training room. If looks could kill, they’d all be dead, courtesy of Alfred. The butler stood with one hand to his chest, as if the sight in front of him was a shock to his heart. He did not look amused as he took in the scene. 

Oh no. Tim won’t go down for this. This was not his fault. He had simply been trying to train when Damian flew into the room with a knife. He would not get in trouble for this, so he points to Damian and cries, “He started it!” 

Okay, so not his most dignified moment, but god help him, he will not get yelled at for this. He won’t. Damian has brought him down enough times by now. Not again.

“What is going on here?” 

And of course there is Bruce, right behind Alfred, peering into the room with narrowed eyes and looking at his three sons like they just committed a heinous crime. 

“Damian tried to kill me!” Tim straightens as best he can as every eye in the room turns to him. Dick looks embarrassed on behalf of the demon spawn, Alfred looks concerned and confused, and Bruce’s face, as always, is blank. 

“Let me go at once so I can finish the job!” Damian leans forward in Dick’s arms and aims a kick at Dick’s crotch. From the way Dick screeches, drops Damian, and cups himself, Tim would say Damian made contact. He winces in sympathy. Ouch.

“Master Damian!” 

Tim can hear Dick panting, can hear Alfred yelling in astonishment, but he has no time to focus on any of that as Damian lunges at him once more. Tim’s training kicks in before he’s even conscious about it, and he dodges Damian easily enough. 

Damian rears back and pulls another knife from what seems to be out of nowhere. Of course. Fucking demon brat. Tim stands in a defensive stance, ready, and Damian’s arm flies back, knife ready to be released at Tim, when Bruce’s giant hand wraps around Damian’s wrist and pulls. 

The knife clatters to the floor. 

Damian and Tim both freeze.

Bruce runs his eyes over both of them, silent and impossible to read. Even after all this time, even after fucking him for weeks now, Tim still can’t read him. It’s easier to read Batman on patrol than when he’s like this. 

“Alfred,” Bruce says after the silence had stretched long enough for even Dick and Alfred to be uncomfortable, “why don’t you tend to Dick?” He tugs at Damian’s wrist and sets his eyes on Tim. “The both of you, my study. Now.” 

Something sinks inside of Tim’s stomach. A weird pain hits him, like someone was squeezing his insides. His stomach hurt. He hadn’t had a stomach ache since he was a kid, but it was pounding now. 

Bruce gives no choice to not follow him, and Damian and Tim do so, looking much like puppies with their tail between their legs. Which, Tim thinks, is bullshit because Tim didn’t even do anything. He has no clue why the demon brat went after him. 

It’s silent inside of Bruce’s office. Bruce still has a hold on Damian and tugs the kid so that he’s standing next to Bruce, opposite of Tim. Damian glares at Tim, ready to attack the minute Bruce lets him go. Tim does not glare back. He is an adult and will act like one, even if that means having to curve the ridiculous urge to stick his tongue out at him.

“Damian,” Bruce says into the silent room, “explain. Now.”

Tim can understand Bruce’s act. To anyone else, there are his two sons, and he has to act like a father here, but it makes Tim uneasy. It’s a reminder of why fucking Bruce is so bad. He gets another pain in his stomach, the kind he gets whenever someone refers to Bruce as his dad, whether that be Alfred, or when he’s out patrolling as Robin and some criminal makes a joke about him and Batman. 

He understands that to everyone else, Bruce is his dad, but times like these, where they pretend, makes him sick. Bruce is not his dad, not when he’s flipping Tim on his stomach, sliding into him, pushing his head into the mattress so no one hears him crying out. Bruce is not his dad when he lets Tim run his tongue over the head of his cock, or when Bruce rims his abused hole, not when they shower naked together, not ever. Not anymore. 

So why can’t he make eye contact? Why does he want Bruce to pull him into a hug and tell him it’s okay? He wants him to go off on Damian, to defend him, and tell Damian he can’t kill his other son. As always, Tim wonders how he became so sick. Maybe he should reach out to Harley. 

For one second, Damian falters. It’s so brief and fleeting that Tim wouldn’t even have caught it if he was a normal person with no training. It’s quickly replaced with disdain and repulsive as Damian looks at Tim, but it’s too late. Tim saw it. Hesitance.

Whatever Damian says next will be a lie. Tim knows it.

“Drake is trying to get rid of me.”

Now Tim's just confused, and from the emotions Bruce allows to play on his face, it seems he is too. Damian is lying, and they don’t know why. Damian and him had actually been fine these past weeks, ever since Bruce promised he’d talk to Damian when Tim first moved out and Bruce was desperate to bring Tim home. 

“What?” Tim demands, arms crossing, ignoring the jab of pain in his stomach. God, it was hurting so bad. “I am not trying to get rid of you, Damian.”

Tim knows that’s the reason, because there’s nothing Tim can think of that would even remotely imply Tim was trying to get rid of Damian. Well, he set the table last night for dinner. Did he forget to give Damian a spoon or something? No, it’s definitely a lie, but why? Why is Damian lying and why would he say this?

What was the real reason today and why won’t he tell Bruce? 

(Something twists in his gut.)

Damian leans forward over Bruce’s desk, spreading his hands on top of it. He’s so angry he’s practically spitting at Tim. “Nonsense! You were hanging out with Grayson again this weekend!”

Was that it? Was Damian mad Dick forced Tim to watch a movie with him? It’s not like Tim seeks Dick out: if anything, he rather not have to be with Dick at all, but he knows Bruce likes it when they get along, so Tim puts up with it. Make no mistake though, Tim would not be with Dick otherwise. 

Even then, that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to try to kill Tim again. But hey, what would Tim know about adolescent killers trained by a league of assassins?

From the look on Bruce’s face, he agrees with Tim. “Damian, I asked Dick to take Tim to the movies. I’m sorry if you feel like Dick hasn’t been giving you enough attention, but it’s only until we solve this case.” 

Tim doesn’t know if that’s true, because Dick has been dropping a lot of hints lately about taking less time at work to focus on the family. Tim doesn’t know what exactly that means, but he knows Dick has been spending more time at the manor these days. He still hangs out with Damian though, way more than with Tim, so Tim really doesn’t understand Damian’s issue. 

He has to be lying, but why?

Damian is frowning as he looks at his father. That was not the answer he had been expecting from Bruce, it seems. “You asked Grayson to steal my time away? Why, Father?”

Yeah, Tim wants to know too. 

Bruce sighs and looks at the both of them, like a father who is exhausted over his son's fighting, like a father who is done with his son's antics. (Tim hates when Bruce looks at him like this.) “I didn’t ask him to steal you time away, Damian. I asked him to simply hang out with Tim so they can work on their relationship.”

“Dick and I don’t need to work on our relationship,” Tim tells Bruce, but Bruce and Damian don’t turn to acknowledge him. 

Even after all this time, he is still pushed away, ignored when the attention needs to be elsewhere. Some things never change. 

“But why?” Damian demands, and he really does look like the little kid he is. 

“Because they are brothers, and it’s good for him. Dick hanging out with Tim does not mean he can’t hang out with you.” Bruce sets a heavy hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian hesitates only for a second before leaning into the touch. “If you had an issue, you should have come to me or Dick. You do NOT kill your brother, do you hear me?”

Your brother, your brother, your brother. The others may refer to Bruce as Tim’s dad, but Bruce doesn’t refer to Tim as his son if he can avoid it. If he’s talking to others, it’s “Your brother” or “Red Robin” “My CEO” or simply “Tim”. Tim doesn’t know how he feels about that. He doesn’t know how he feels about anything anymore. 

Damian does not put up a fight. He nods. “Yes, of course, Father.” And then to everyone’s surprises, Damian turns to Tim unprompted and says, “My apologies, Drake. I will refrain from killing you for the near future.” 

Tim’s jaw drops so far he’s surprised he doesn’t catch flies. 

Bruce doesn’t bother to hide his shock either. He squeezes Damian’s shoulder. “Well, that’s good, son. I’m glad you’re mature enough to recognize the situation.” And Damian all but preens at the praise. “I’m sure Tim appreciates your apology, but I’m still going to have to punish you.”

Tim’s expecting a fight, and from the look on Bruce’s face, he does too. But Damian shocks the room once again when he just shrugs and nods. “Yes, that is acceptable. I acted without thinking.”

What was the little creep up to?

“Right, very well, Damian. You’re benched for two weeks.” 

And Damian nods, eyes locked on Tim, but not in a way that sends shivers down Tim’s spine. More like Tim is a puzzle and Damian is determined to get to the bottom of things. It's such a change from earlier that Tim head swims.

“I accept my punishment, Father. May I go now?” 

Bruce chuckles, like he’s pleasantly surprised to see this side of Damian. “Sure thing, son.” 

Damian nods at his father, narrows his eyes, and leaves the study, closing the door behind him. 

“Well,” Bruce says into the silence, “that was unexpected. Are you okay?”

Tim rubs at his elbow absentmindedly His mind felt like it was going fifty miles an hour. What was Damian up to, why was he behaving like that, why did he not put up a fight? It wasn’t sitting well with Tim. 

“I’m fine.”

Today seemed like a day to be completely out of character for everyone, apparently, because Bruce sighs, pushes his chair back from the desk, and spreads out his arms for a hug. Bruce doesn’t really hug ever. He rubs hair, pats backs, and for Tim alone he’ll fuck him into the mattress, maybe cuddle just a bit afterwards, but they don’t hug. 

Tim only hesitates a second before cautiously allowing himself to be pulled into Bruce’s lap. Bruce breathes him in, tucks Tim’s head under his chin, and rubs a hand up and down Tim’s back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tim repeats, but he doesn’t pull away when Bruce turns their positions to kiss at the space where Tim’s neck connects with his shoulder. 

Tim only pulls away to ask about the others, before Bruce points out that Alfred would be tending to Dick, and Damian had already dismissed himself. 

And Tim thinks about how it’s weird that Bruce seems to know when Tim needs him, when Bruce knows when Tim needs to feel like Bruce is choosing him. And Tim knows Bruce has some weird need to make things right, to fix every problem he can. He wouldn’t be Batman if he didn’t have that need. Tim knows Bruce will do anything Tim needs of him, and Bruce knows when Tim seems to need that. 

So he doesn’t protest when Bruce gets up, locks the door to his study just in case, and then flips Tim around so that his belly cuts into the desk. He doesn’t protest when Bruce wrangles him out of his training shorts and underwear, and then fucks him over the desk. 

When Tim comes, there’s a sick satisfaction in him that recognizes that Damian is getting punished and Bruce is here with him, fucking him, and making him come. That feeling stays with him when they’re done and Tim sees Damian all but licking his wounds in the TV room with Dick. 

Dick doesn’t seem too happy with the kid but he brightens when he sees Tim standing in the doorway. Tim’s about to go to his room for a quick shower, but Dick waves him over. Tim hesitates, looking between Dick and Damian, but Damian just nods. 

“I’ll leave you two to speak.” He nods at Dick. “Grayson.” Then he leaves the room, not even spearing Tim a glance. Something was seriously wrong with that kid and if Tim had the energy, he'd be trying to get to the bottom of things, but he doesn't have the energy and if he's being honest, he doesn't really care, either. 

“Hey, Timbo. You doing okay?”

Tim rubs at his shoulder, hoping his t-shirt hid the bite planted there. No hickies this time, Tim’s shirt wouldn’t cover it, so Bruce made up for it with hidden love bites. 

“I’m fine. Damian didn’t even land a hit.”

Dick nods. “Yeah. I’m sorry he attacked you.”

Tim laughs dryly. “I’m used to it.” 

Dick flinches and that sick feeling of satisfaction returns. Good, Dick should feel sorry. “I’m really sorry, Tim.”

Dick’s words are heavy in the room. Tim shrugs and sits on the edge of the couch. After a second hesitation from Dick, he joins Tim on the opposite side. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“No, I mean, I am sorry.” Dick won’t meet Tim’s eyes and suddenly Tim understands Dick is apologizing for more than just this afternoon. 

A part of Tim is annoyed. He’s already told Dick that an apology means nothing to him, and that there really isn’t anything Tim wants from Dick. 

Another part of Tim is guilty. Dick really has been trying these past few weeks. He seeks out Tim, he makes sure to show Tim how bad he feels, he genuinely seems sorry. From the hints, Tim’s enough of a detective to realize that Dick wanting to spend more time with the family is partly because of him.

“I’m just-fuck, Timmy, I’m so fucking sorry.” Dick sighs, letting his shoulders slump down and presses his back against the couch. Tim won’t look at him. “I fucked up, and I know there’s nothing I can do to fix that, but I miss you, Tim.”

“I’m right here,” Tim tells him. “I didn’t go anywhere. You did.”

“I thought at the time that I was doing the right thing.”

Tim finally turns to look at Dick, really look at him. Dick does not look good. He looks sad, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Tim knows that feeling. 

“What brought this on,” Tim asks. If Dick was going to have this conversation, why now? 

“After Damian attacked you today, I realized that what I was doing wasn’t working. I thought I could distance myself to you and you’d come around. I thought that you and Damian could magically fix your issues and you’d see each other as brothers.

“I mean, fuck Tim,” Dick continues, and Tim angles himself a bit closer to Dick without realizing it, “I guess it was wish full thinking. I realize now I was wrong, and that’s why I’m here. I’m trying to fix things, Tim. I am.” 

It’s . . . not everything Tim wanted to hear, but it’s close enough. Up until this moment, Tim hadn’t allowed himself to realize just how much he missed Dick. They were never really close as brothers, but they were good friends. Tim always looked up to Dick as someone he admired. 

It hurt when Dick chose Damian, and it still hurts now, but there’s something beating in Tim’s chest telling him to forgive Dick. Tim can’t though, not yet. As much as he loves to hear Dick’s speech, it doesn’t magically make things okay. 

But, he is trying. He is, Tim sees it, but he just can’t forgive Dick all the way. Tim’s waiting for something, but he doesn’t know what. Dick just needs one last shove to really prove himself to Tim. 

Tim sighs, ready to say something, when Dick crosses his legs and flinches. He cries out with a loud, “Fuck!” It’s loud enough to make Tim flinch. 

Whatever Tim had wanted to say disappears as concern fills him instead. “Oh, shit. How’s your dick?”

Dick takes a deep breath and adjusts himself back into the couch. He grips the edge of the couch so tightly that his knuckles turn white. “Fine, for the most part. Just a little tender when I move wrong.”

Tim nods, spreading his fingers over his knee as he angels himself as close to Dick as he can get without touching. “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

Subconsciously, he supposes the idea has always been in the back of his mind. He just never allowed himself to think of it for long lengths of time. Tim’s always had a little crush on Dick, long before he ever had a crush on Brucie Wayne. 

Tim had admired and looked up to the first Robin before he had realized who he was. All of those feelings were crushed long before Bruce was lost in time, so Tim really hadn’t thought about them in years.

He remembers his Robin collection. Sure, Tim had collected all the superhero figures he could as a kid, but his Robin collection always had double. If he had a Wonder Woman plushie and doll, he had three Robin dolls, two plushies, and a comforter set of Robin. 

Meeting Dick had only cranked those feelings up, Dick was an attractive guy with a great ass, and he was so kind to Tim. Tim had always thought it was just a kid’s crush though, and eventually those feelings left to something as admirable once he actually got to know Dick. 

He hadn’t meant to come on to Dick, he really hadn’t. He just wants Dick to, well, what? What does he want Dick to do? 

He wants Dick to get a grip and realize the world isn’t the black and white he sees it. 

Dick throws his head back and laughs, the sound like nails on a chalkboard to Tim’s ears in the previously silent room. “Sure, okay, Timmy.” Slowly, he stops laughing as he looks at Tim, who sits still in his seat, eyes cold, dead seriously.

Dick swallows. “I, uh.” He doesn’t seem to know what to say as he realizes Tim is not joking. 

Tim wets his lip. He’s not trying to seduce Dick or anything, his lips are just dry. Dick follows the movement with his eyes and flinches back, away from Tim. 

“I can, you know,” Tim says, wets his lips again, pushes on. “If you want.”

The silence is so loud in the room. Dick is gaping like a fish, his mouth opening and closing, like he’s not sure what to say. He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes refusing to look at Tim. 

“That’s okay, Timmy,” he says finally, his voice no louder than a whisper. “You don’t have to do that.”

Dick’s reaction is not what Tim was expecting, and it’s clear he’s uncomfortable. He’s lost, unsure what to say or do. He hadn’t expected this. He had never thought of this the way Tim has. 

If Bruce has the insatiable need to fix things and make things right no matter what it takes, then Dick has the need to do what he thinks is best, no matter if it’s wrong or right. 

“Okay.” Tim stands. “See ya later, Dick.”

Dick doesn’t say anything back, just watches as Tim retreats from the room. 

***

TWO DAYS BEFORE 

The next day, Todd sits in for Sunday breakfast, and he laughs so hard he chokes on a pancake when he hears the tale of Damian kicking Dick in his dick. 

“Master Jason, please!” But there wasn’t any heat to Alfred’s words, and Tim didn’t know any better, he’d say Alfred seemed to be holding back his own smile. 

“Hahah, yes, so funny, thanks Jay.” Dick doesn’t even seem that annoyed though, and he even smiles when Jason just throws his head back and laughs harder. 

Sunday breakfast was something Tim dreaded since he moved out, but Todd made it bearable-not because of himself, but because he distracted the others attention, leaving Tim to be happily forgotten. Tim is okay with this. 

“You should have heard him scream,” Damian tells Todd, smirking at the older man. 

“Tell me,” Todd leers down at Damian with wonder in his eyes, “what did it sound like?”

“Do NOT answer him, Damian.” Dick glares at Todd, cheeks puffed out, and points his fork at him. “You try to act manly when someone kicks you in the dick.”

“I do not like where this conversation is going,” Bruce says dryly.

Tim hums into his cup of coffee.

“Neither do I,” Alfred adds, setting down a plate of pancakes in front of Tim. Tim ignores it for another swig of coffee. 

“Alright, alright.” Todd waves his hands in the air, rolling his eyes, but grinning wide. 

After breakfast, Tim helps Alfred clean up before heading down to the Batcave. Bruce, Todd, and Grayson are already there, though while Bruce focuses on reports and putting together the puzzle, Todd and Grayson wrestle on a yoga mat. Bruce ignores them, pretending like he doesn’t know what’s happening behind him. 

It seems to be just for fun, and nobody is throwing any hard hits. Bruce continues to concentrate on the monitor, but Todd and Grayson both look up as Tim enters the cave. 

Todd simply nods at him, but Grayson’s face flushes red and he pushes Todd off him. “I’m going to see what Damian is doing,” he announced.

Tim bypasses the men on the mat to stand over Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce waves Dick off, but Todd glares at Dick. “I thought you were going to help us?”

Grayson looks quickly at Tim then to the floor. The tip of his ears are red. “It’s the same as it has been for weeks. Let me know if there’s any changes.” He squeezes Todd’s shoulder, then heads out of the cave. 

“He’s acting strange,” Todd says.

Tim shrugs, eyes focused on the screen in front of him. That wasn’t Tim’s problem.

“Come and look at this.”

Tim glances back to Bruce and sees a new report at the monitor. It just was given to Bruce earlier this morning, courtesy of Jim Gordon himself. 

It’s the same kind of report as before: a young woman hallucinating of being kidnapped, but she never actually left her house. As much as it hurts Tim to say it, it’s nothing special. They’ve had these kinds of reports for weeks. 

Todd must be thinking the same thing, because he says, “Uh, B, there’s nothing special here. Maybe-”

“No, look. Here.” Bruce zooms in on a certain paragraph of the file. “Look. She went to the hospital. She had a concussion.” 

That was interesting. Usually in these reports there were no actual physical injury. Tim looks closer at the screen. The report said the concussion came from her tripping at home. 

“But you don’t believe that,” Tim tells Bruce.

Bruce nods. “No, I don’t.”

Todd frowns at the screen, eyes going from Tim to Bruce, back to Tim. Todd wasn’t the detective Tim and Bruce were: he couldn’t connect the dots as easily. He wasn’t seeing what they saw. “What do you think that means, B?”

“I think that her concussion is a result of fear gas. I think all of these hallucinations are a result of fear gas.”

“Yeah,” Todd answers slowly, eyes still going back and forth from Tim to Bruce, “but I thought we knew that already?”

It’s Tim who answers him. “We knew they were using fear gas for the hallucinations, but we couldn’t figure out why they were saying they were kidnapped and trafficked.” 

“This definitely explains it,” Bruce grunts, his eyes never leaving the monitor in front of him.

Todd groans, clearly annoyed. He throws up his hands, eyes narrowing. “Can you two please explain? We’re not all detectives for fuck sake.” 

“It means,” Tim tells him, “that they are being kidnapped and trafficked, and someone is using a new batch of fear gas to make them think they hallucinated it.”

“How?” Todd demands. “That doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t explain the concussion.”

“The concussion is irrelevant,” Tim explains to Todd patiently. “My guess is that Penguin has teamed up with the others to make a quick buck. What’s the issue with sex trafficking? People report victims missing. They know they’re gone, which leads to the ring being broken up.”

“But,” Bruce jumps in, “if you can return the victim before anyone even knows they’re missing, no one is the wiser.”

“But they’d tell,” Todd points out. “They’d tell someone what happened to them.”

“Not unless they don’t know it happens. Or more like, not if people think they’re just hallucinating.” Tim is so excited that he practically bounces on the balls of his feet. The pieces were coming together in a way that excited Tim. 

“So let me get this straight. Penguin snatches the victims, he sells them for a day or two, but to make sure they don’t tell, he has Scarecrow fear gas them so that what, police think that they just hallucinated it?” Todd doesn’t seem to believe the words he’s speaking, but Bruce nods. 

“Yes,” Bruce says. “Penguin is careful: he makes sure there’s no bruises, no injuries, nothing to show that they were actually taken. Except for Elise Carrington.” He points to the lady on the screen. “They messed up somehow. Maybe she woke up early, realized where she was, and fought back. That explains her concussion.”

“Okay but that doesn’t explain the reports that say nothing happened at all, that they didn’t leave their house.”

Tim nods. He had an explanation for that. “I think that’s where the Riddler comes in. I think he’s messing with the timeline. I think he confused the victims. Say Miss Carrington reported she was missing Tuesday and Wednesday. Well, obviously the police have records of her being at work those days. What if she was actually missing Sunday and Monday?” Tim walks next to Bruce and pulls up the other reports. 

“Look,” he continues, “look at the victims. They picked victims no one would report missing: foster kids, single women on their own, drug addicts with no job. It would be easy to mix up the days they think they were taken if they have no one to report them missing or to see them.”

Todd scratches his chin in concentration. “This is fuckin' confusing,” he says at last. “And it still doesn’t explain why the streets are quiet.”

“Language,” Bruce tells him. 

“It’s confusing, but it makes sense.” Tim does bounce on the balls of his feet then, and grips the back of Bruce’s chair. “Scarecrow gets to try out a new batch of fear gas, Penguin makes money off the trafficking, and the Riddler just gets to cause chaos, which he seems to like.”

Todd snorts then sobers. “What does this all mean? B, what do we do?”

“It means,” Bruce says slowly, “that we need a plan.”

ONE DAY BEFORE

Dick was avoiding him. Tim could laugh at the irony. It was Monday and the entire weekend Dick had been dropping hints of staying longer, and now he had fucked off back to his apartment.

He wouldn’t look at Tim, wouldn’t meet his eyes, didn’t even say goodbye before he left. It was a complete 180 from where he had been before. Tim thought about reaching out, to tell Dick that he was just joking and didn’t mean to make things weird, but he stopped himself every time. 

Isn’t this what he wanted? Hadn’t he wanted Dick to leave him alone? He couldn’t bring himself to pick up his phone. He wondered if Dick would even help with the plan. They needed all hands on deck, after all. Today was just setting the stones in motion, so they didn’t need Dick tonight, but tomorrow night would require help. 

If Dick let this interfere with the mission, then that was on him.

The whole day at WE passes in a blur. Tim’s barely aware of the presentation he gives, or what he says during his meetings. His mind was locked on the plan, and he barely ate dinner that night, too. 

He was nervous, but he was more excited than anything. They were going to get to the bottom of things one way or another. He was excited for the action, but he was more excited to put together the final pieces of the puzzle. 

His nerves are completely shot by the time they suit up for the night. If Bruce notices the way his fingers shake as he clasps on his cape, he doesn’t mention it. 

They don’t talk at all, actually. That was fine with Tim. He’s worried he’ll vomit the second he opens his mouth. 

Focus on the plan, he tells himself. Set the stones in motion and everything will be okay. Set up the puzzle and the pieces will fall in. 

They park the Batmobile, making sure it’s hidden in the shadows. Tim can hear Red Hood’s motorcycle in the distance.

Tim makes for the door handle, but Batman lays a hand on his shoulder. Tim turns to look at him, head cocked in confusion. 

“Red Robin?”

“Yeah, Batman?”

Batman’s face is blank as it always is, and Tim has already had issues reading Batman, so he can’t figure out what the man is trying to say. He must want to say something, but he seems to falter. 

Perhaps there is a lot Bruce always wants to say to him, but doesn’t seem to be able to anymore. 

“Yeah?” Tim repeats. His hand skates over the door handle, ready to push it open and get out there. 

“Be safe.”

Tim grins cockily at him. “I always am, B.” 

Together, they go out into the night.

PRESENT DAY

Tonight’s the night. Everything will come together tonight. They set the plan into motion last night and if it worked, which it should, then everything will be over tonight and the three villains will be locked up tonight. 

Tim skips work completely. He’s the CEO, he can do that. Instead, he spends the entire day with Bruce in the Batcave. They’re both so on edge that they don’t even speak to each other besides one sentence orders such as, “Pull up that report” or “Hand me my coffee, would ya?” 

Todd stops by in the afternoon, and even he looks on edge, too. It doesn’t help that Damian joins them as soon as school gets out, even though he’s benched from going out. The only person who is missing is Dick, and when Todd asks, all Bruce says is, 

“He’s been held up.”

“But he’ll be here, right?” Todd presses. 

Bruce shrugs. 

A part of Tim knows it’s his fault. He made Dick uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant to, he really did want to suck his dick. He wouldn’t have offered if he thought he’d act like this. A part of Tim is annoyed, too. They’re both adults, they should be able to handle this. Instead, Dick was acting like a 15 year old who was just offered his first blow job.

Todd sighs in annoyance, and Tim resists the urge to join him. Dick needed to get his shit together. 

“We don’t need him,” Bruce tells them. “Dick was kind enough to offer his help, but it’s not his territory and he’s under no obligation to help us. If he decides to do so, it’s because he wants to, not because he has too.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Todd snaps.

“I agree with Todd on this.” Tim turns to Damian in surprise, who flushes when Bruce turns to look at him, but continues with, “Grayson said he’d be there and he isn’t. He shouldn’t go back on his word.”

What has the world come to, Tim thinks, that he agrees with the little brat?

“Damian,” Bruce starts but Tim cuts him off. 

“Let’s just start.” Tim un-clenches his hands, unaware he had even clenched them in the first place. Thinking about Dick was starting to give him a headache, which was bullshit because it wasn’t his fault. Dick was the one acting weird. “If Dick joins, we can fill him in.”

Todd opens his mouth to argue, and maybe it would have been something important, or maybe it would have been an argument against Bruce, or maybe just a quick one-liner against Dick.

Tim doesn’t know, and he’ll never find out. Suddenly the walls are shaking, and the equipment that isn't nailed down are moving, and Tim feels the wind knocked out of him as he falls to the ground. 

There’s a loud ringing in his ears, and it takes a minute for him to work out what Bruce is saying, but when he does, he can only squint his eyes in confusion. An earthquake? In New Jersey? During this time of the year?

A large hand grabs his ankle and pulls him under the desk. Tim’s head is throbbing from where he smacked it on the ground when he fell. He’s being pressed into the back of the desk, and then suddenly Bruce is pressing Damian into his arms and then encircling them both into his large chest. 

The earthquake only happens for a few more seconds, and just as suddenly as it started, it ends. 

They take a minute to collect themselves. Bruce is screaming something at him and Damian, but neither boy is responding. With a cry, Bruce shakes them both so hard Tim’s head snaps back. 

“Answer me! Are you boys okay? Damian? Tim?”

“Fine,” Tim gasps. Somebody squeezes his hand and he’ll only realize later that it’s Damian. 

“Fine,” Damian repeats, his voice small. It’s impossible to hide how scared he sounds. 

“Where’s Todd?” Tim gasps. He tries to peak over Bruce’s shoulder, a sudden panic hitting him. Todd wasn’t with them under the desk. “Todd!”

“I’m fine!” a voice shouts somewhere near his left. “I’m under the armchair! I’m okay!”

Bruce squeezes Damian’s hand, then Tim’s, before slowly backing out from the desk. “I need to go check on Alfred. Stay here-”

The emergency alarms go off in the cave. Tim can’t see the monitors from under the desk, but he’s pretty sure they’re flashing emergency in big red flashing letters. 

“I don’t think that was an earthquake, B.” Todd stands slowly, eyes on guard. “They wouldn’t send the emergency signal for an earthquake.”

Bruce nods slowly, walking until he stands in front of Todd before gathering the man into his arms for a quick hug. Todd doesn’t hug back, but he doesn’t fight it either. “Stay here. I’m going to check on Alfred, and then we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

All Todd can do is nods, looking numb. A phone starts to ring: it’s Damian’s. His hand shakes as he takes the phone out of his pocket. Tim sees Dick’s name on the home screen. “It's Grayson.” 

“Make sure he’s okay. Do not go anywhere, any of you. I’ll be right back.” Bruce disappears outside of the cave, leaving the three boys together. 

Damian’s phone call with Dick is brief. Tim can’t hear Dick, but from the way Damian assures him multiple times that they’re all fine, he assumes Dick must be worried. 

Tim isn’t aware he’s still shaking, not until Bruce comes back and lets them know that Alfred was startled but unharmed. The emergency signals are still blaring. They need to leave. 

Bruce must come to the same conclusion. His eyes sweep over the other occupants in the room and he straightens. “We need to leave, now. Damian, go upstairs and find Alfred.” Damian opens his mouth, ready to protest, but Bruce cuts him off before he can even start. “You’re still benched, and we don’t know what we’re working with. Go to Alfred, now.”

When Damian still doesn’t move, Bruce seems to lose all patience. “Now. This is not up for debate!” 

Finally, Damian untangles himself from Tim (and Tim hadn’t even realized they were still pressed together) and slowly walks out from under the desk. They wait before he’s safely upstairs before Bruce turns to them. 

“Alright, let’s go.” 

Together, the three of them head out for the unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, sorry to end it there but the chapter was getting too long and was starting to get away from me. This chapter was not written the best, but I just wanted to get it out. I may return to edit it later: I'm not very happy with it. I am not good at writing action. I want to hesitantly say the next chapter will be up next Wednesday or Thursday. Thanks for all the kudus and comments, and I'll see you guys in the next chapter.


	6. Damian Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never really could answer that question, not when Bruce asked, and not when Stephanie did, either. He can’t even answer it when he asks himself.

Before he opens his eyes, he’s aware of the pain first. It’s not constant: it hits him in waves at first. It’s not until the waves are coming faster and faster and not retreating back into the ocean does he realize the pain switches to constant, and that’s all he knows. 

It hurts. That’s all he can concentrate on. It hurts. He can’t help but groan in pain. His mouth feels dry but that’s the least of his worries. He tries to move but he can’t seem to lift any of his limbs. 

“Tim?”

Someone calls his name, but it’s irrelevant. His body is only focusing on the pain and the pain alone. He doesn’t even notice himself slipping back into unconsciousness until suddenly he’s gone again.

When he wakes up again, the pain isn’t as bad. It’s bad, don’t get him wrong, but it’s a dull pain. He’s had enough injuries before to know that the pain meds have kicked in this time. Pain meds mean he’s somewhere, but doesn’t mean he’s safe. For all he knows, Ra’s al Ghul found him and took him to his island to treat Tim himself. 

“Drake?”

This time, he’s aware of his name being called. He still can’t move his limbs, but he can crack an eye open. He thinks he’s hallucinating though, because Damian of all people is at his bedside. 

Whatever pain meds they gave him are doing wonders for his body, apparently. 

“You’re awake,” Damian states. He’s doing a good job at hiding his emotions: Tim’s not sure if the kid seems to be surprised or not at seeing him awake. 

Tim tries to speak, but his mouth is so dry. It hadn’t mattered before when the pain was all he knew, but now that the pain was dull, he couldn’t help but smack his lips together. He tries to speak, but he croaks like a frog.

“Here.” 

To Tim’s ever lasting surprise, Damian grabs a cup of ice chips that somebody had left on his nightstand, and shoves a spoonful into Tim’s mouth. Tim chokes in surprise, convinced that they’re poisonous and Damian is here to finish the job the villains couldn’t. 

But his mouth is so dry and his tongue scrapes the ice chips down his throat, wetting his mouth instantly. His lips part on their own again, and Damian shoves a second spoonful of ice chips in. Tim swallows again.

With his mouth no longer dry, he’s able to speak. “What happened?” 

He knows he’s in his room in the manor, and can see the IV going through his arm. His left wrist is in a cast: he has a sudden flash of Penguin slamming his umbrella down on it, but he can’t remember much else. 

His ribs are sore, and they ache every time he breathes. So a broken wrist, broken or bruised ribs, and definitely a concussion. There’s probably more, but the pain is so dull right now that he can’t focus on any other specific pain. 

“You don’t remember?” Damian asks. The kid sits back down in the chair across from Tim’s bed. There was a book next to the ice chips on Tim’s bedside table. Tim couldn’t read the title, but Damian must have been reading it. 

Tim tries to think. It was all fuzzy. He can remember flashes: the bomb going off that they thought was an earthquake, the fear gas that hit the entire city, sirens, Penguin slamming his umbrella down on Tim’s wrist, someone kicking him hard in the ribs, but he can't remember much else. 

Something about Red Hood? He was there, too, but Tim doesn’t know what happened. 

“I don’t know,” Tim answers Damian. He tries to move his arms, but that hurts too much to do, so he focuses on flexing his fingers, which twitch accordingly. 

Damian nods, like he was expecting that answer. Silence lapse into the room. 

Tim coughs. “Why are you here?” No offense to Damian, but why was the kid here? Of all people, he was not expecting Damian of all people. Did Bruce put him here? Maybe Alfred? 

Damian looks away from Tim’s eyes, focusing his eyes on Tim’s dresser. His shoulders hunch forward. 

“Damian?” Tim presses. Whatever the kid wants to say, he should just say it. Tim’s not in the mood to play detective right now. 

Damian still won’t look at him. The kid nervously runs his fingers along the spine of his book. “I know.”

Tim blinks. “Know what?” Does Damian know what happened Tim? If so, he should share it, because Tim can’t remember much and it’s starting to annoy him. 

Damian slowly shakes his head. “No, I mean, I know.” He puts emphasis on the last word of his sentence, as if that would help make Tim understand what he means. 

It doesn’t. What did Damian know and why was he so hesitant to tell Tim? If Damian knew a secret that Tim didn’t, the kid would usually wave it in his face with a smug smirk, as if it made him superior to know something that Tim didn’t.

(Tim won’t lie: sometimes it did bother him that Damian knew something he didn’t.)

But that wasn’t like that: Damian was hesitant to share that he knows whatever that he knew. It was like he didn’t want to know what he did and there’s really only one thing that Tim could think of that would fit that-

Oh.

“You know,” Tim tells him.

Damian knew. How did Damian know? 

Damian finally turns to Tim for the first time, making sure their eyes lock before he nods. “Yes, I know. I know that Father is raping you.” 

Tim blinks again. Why did everyone think Bruce was raping him? Was it so hard to believe that everything between them was consensual? First Steph and then Damian. Did they really think so little of Bruce? Steph sure, but Damian? How could he think that of his own father? 

Bruce would never hurt Tim.

And anyway, how did Damian even come to that conclusion? Him and Bruce were careful. They fucked in places they were sure they were the only ones there, and they always cleaned up before either of them left. 

There’s no way that he could know. And yet, he clearly knew something. Even if he came to the wrong conclusion, it means he had all the puzzle pieces to make a conclusion anyway. 

Tim could deny it. Technically, he wouldn’t even be lying. Bruce wasn’t raping him. All he would have to say would be, “Damian, Bruce isn’t raping me," and end it there. 

But Damian was Damian, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t believe Tim. He clearly had his mind set on his conclusion. If he thought he was wrong, he wouldn’t have brought it up to Tim. 

The pain was starting to become less dull now. Tim really wanted to fall back asleep.

He sighs. “Damian. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Bruce isn’t raping me.”

Damian nods, like he was expecting that answer. “It is not uncommon for victims to lie to protect their abusers, especially with a power imbalance like the one you have. I-”

“Damian,” Tim cuts him off and sighs again. He wants more ice chips. “Bruce isn’t raping me, okay? It’s . . I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s all consensual, okay? I want it.”

It’s not often Tim gets to see Damian shocked, and he wishes he had his camera to take a picture of the kid’s face. He would laugh if it wasn’t so horrifying.

“Consensual?” Damian runs his tongue around his mouth, as if trying to form the word into his brain. The kid looks so puzzled. Seriously, was it really that hard to believe that Bruce would want Tim as a sexual partner? Tim’s starting to feel offended. “I do not understand.”

There’s a sharp pain in his head and his ribs ache the next time Tim breathes in. The pain medication was wearing off and Tim did not want to be awake for it. He sighs, but flinches when his ribs protest. 

“Just, don’t tell anyone. I can-” he breaks off to blink back the darkness between his eyes. His fingers flex at his sides, desperate to rub at his eyes, but he still can’t move them. “I can explain later, just don’t tell anyone,” Tim tells Damian, right before he passes out again. 

The next time he wakes up, Damian is gone, and Alfred is replacing his IV fluid bag. He can remember more now. He remembers leaving the Batcave to fly off into the city, only to realize the earthquake was a bomb so big that it shook the entire city all the way to the manor. The bomb had released a batch of fear gas. 

Moth citizens of Gotham knew to always keep a gas mask on them at all times, and for the most part, the civilians were okay. Tim still can’t remember what happened after that, but he’s confident that it’ll come back to him soon enough. 

“Oh good,” Alfred says once he realizes Tim is up, “you’re awake. How are you feeling, Master Tim?” 

Tim coughs into his hand, his throat painfully dry but happy to see that he has enough energy to move his limbs now. “Okay,” he answers Alfred, who nods and spoons him some ice chips. 

The ice chips remind him of Damian, and he flinches as he remembers the conversation they had before Tim passed out again. Panic starts to claw its way at Tim’s chest. He knows, Damian of all fucking people knows. 

“Take it easy, Master Tim.” Alfred gently places his arms on Tim’s chest and pushes him carefully back into his bed. “You suffered many injuries.”

“I need-”

“Now, now, whatever it is can wait.” Alfred pushes the blanket back over Tim’s chest, tucking it so far up until it hits Tim’s chin. His tone is gentle but firm as he tells Tim, “You need to rest.” 

Tim wants to cry. He wants to fight Alfred and get up and find Damian, but he knows Alfred is right. Tim’s whole body feels like he got hit by a train. Maybe he did, he can’t remember. He’s certainly in no position to get up. Even if he managed to swing his legs over, he’s sure Alfred would simply put him back to bed. 

But he needs to find Damian. He needs to make sure the kid hasn’t told anyone. They desperately need to talk. 

“Damian was here earlier,” Tim tells Alfred, who nods and stands, going back to fix Tim’s IV. 

“Yes, we all took turns watching over you. I wasn’t aware you regained consciousness however. Master Damian did not inform us.”

Tim breathes a sigh of relief. If he didn’t tell anyone Tim woke up and that they talked, then that most likely means Damian hasn’t told anyone of their conversation, or the conclusion he has come to. 

Tim doesn’t know how Damian knows, but he really needs to figure it out. Perhaps Alfred was right though, it could wait. As Alfred spoons him more ice, he feels himself falling back into his bed and going back into that comfortable darkness.

The next time he wakes up, no one is there. The curtains are closed, so he can’t see how light it was outside, but the clock told Tim that it was 3:21 AM. His family was either sleeping or patrolling. 

Tim can remember everything now. It flashes through his mind like a montage of an action movie. He groans, desperate to stop it, but he couldn’t.

He sees everything. He sees them going into the city, straight into the chaos. Fear gas, he remembers. The bomb hadn’t done any damage: it shook the city when it went off, but nothing blew up or tumbled down. Instead the entire city was covered in gas.

Citizens crying out, the unlucky ones who hadn’t had masks, the distraction of the Riddler and his stupid fucking games, trying to get to hostages from Scarecrow while Penguin lead gangs into the city-

Fucking gangs, responsible for the sex trafficking, coming into the city in gas masks and trying to grab the citizens caught without masks-

People hallucinating, crying, there’s only three of them, and someone has to stop the gangs and Penguin and Scarecrow and the Riddler-

Tim chokes. He sees it, sees the fighting and hallucinating, not enough antitoxin for the citizens, helping Batman with Penguin, they’re getting away, Batman goes after Scarecrow and Tim takes Penguin- 

(Penguin doesn’t usually fight, why is he fighting-)

Some parts are fleeting, and he can’t remember the full fight scene-

Can remember helping Batman fight Penguin, the umbrella coming down on his wrist and him crying out, no way to regather, the umbrella comes down again but this time on his ribs, over and over, until Penguin is kicking him too, Batman with Scarecrow, Hood helping elsewhere, god there’s only three of them-

It’s just Tim and Penguin somehow, and he’s getting beat, he can only fend off so much, but then that umbrella comes down on his mask, that damn fucking umbrella on his gas mask-

It breaks and Tim panics and breathes in-

Penguin wasn't trying to kill him, just wanted to get away-

Hallucinations start-

Batman raping him, that’s all he sees, he doesn’t see his usual hallucinations, god it’s just Batman and it hurts so much and he’s so alone-

It only lasts for a few seconds, and then there’s something pricking his arm and then all at once his head clears and there’s Robin standing over him, eyes wide, holding a syringe-

Oh. 

Robin snuck out to help, and the others were far away and the only one to hear his cries of Batman raping him were Robin, because Tim remembers shutting off his com just before the gas kicks in so at least no one would hear him screaming over it. 

Robin finds Tim hallucinating Batman raping him, and god, normal people don’t hallucinate that unless it actually happens in real life, and so that’s how Damian comes to the conclusion that-

Damian saves his life, drags him away, keeps him safe as his mind clears. Damian calls for help, has to leave Tim alone on the sidewalk, and then there’s Hood, Hood’s there, begging Tim not to die-

Finally over, like the ending to a movie, Tim sobs loudly into his room. He rubs at his eyes but there’s nothing to be done to stop the tears falling down his cheeks. Oh god, oh god. He was dying, wasn’t he? How was he alive? How did he get home? How the fuck did they manage to save him and the city?

Tim remembers the darkness, that feeling of it covering him in, of wanting to sleep and not wake up. His sobs turn into a hiccup, and he starts to panic as he can’t breathe. He’s all alone, just like he was when he was dying, and it’s so dark. 

“Tim? Tim, are you alright?”

Tim can only sob, thrashing in bed. He yanks the IV out of his arm in panic, and the person in his room cries out in shock, but he has to get away- he can’t die, he can’t-(but would it really be so bad, wouldn’t it be so peaceful-)

“Tim! Tim calm down, try to breathe. Can you hear me?”

Someone grabs his hand and he tries to tug it free, but the person who has a grip on him is stronger, taller, and pulls Tim’s hand so that it’s touching a wall, no, not a wall, a chest, and Tim can feel the beating heart under the muscles that lie there.

“Breathe with me, Timmy okay?”

The person loudly breathes in and then out, and Tim has no choice but to follow, focusing on the way the heart is pounding in the chest. 

In and out in and out-

A hand rubs as his back and Tim leans into the touch with a whimper. “That’s it, Timmy. It’s okay.”

Slowly, Tim’s panic attack edges away and Tim blinks up at Dick with a small frown. 

“It’s okay, Timmy.”

Tim hadn’t even realized that Dick had wrapped Tim up in a hug, arms circled around Tim and pulling the lithe man tight. They were sitting on Tim’s bed, Dick with his back pressed against the headboard and Tim in his lap, their chests pressed together with Tim’s hand in the middle. 

“Okay?” Dick asks and Tim nods, sighing out slowly. 

“Can you-” He gestures to a cup of water someone-he’s guessing Alfred-had placed on his nightstand. 

“Of course. Here.” 

Dick hands Tim cup and Tim sips from it, hand shaking. Dick rubs small circles into Tim’s back, and things had been awkward between the, but Tim leans into it anyway. 

“We shouldn’t have let you alone,” Dick tells him once Tim finally calms down. “We’d thought you’d sleep through the night.”

Tim just shakes his head and drinks more water. He’s holding it with one hand, and it’s only now does he realize his left wrist is broken, wrapped up in a cast. His head and ribs hurt, too. In fact, they ache with pain, ribs throbbing, surely Tim jostled something in his panic attack.

“I’ll need to put in your IV again,” Dick tells him. 

Tim doesn’t answer him, but he doesn’t protest as Dick untangles them and tucks Tim back into bed, careful to rest his broken wrist on a pillow. Tim barely even feels the IV needle going back into the skin. Tim’s expecting Dick to leave now that Tim’s okay, but he just plops down onto the chair Damian had sat in earlier. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dick asks, and Tim shoots him a glare. Dick laughs, but it sounds dry even to Tim’s own ears. “Yeah, of course you don’t. Well, try to get some sleep, I’ll stay for the rest of the night.”

“No,” Tim snaps at him. “Just go.” 

Dick doesn’t get to avoid him for days and then suddenly tries to be Tim’s brother again. It doesn’t work like that. He made things awkward, not Tim. They hadn’t even done anything. All Tim offered was a blowjob and Dick acted like it was the end of the world. 

That was the issue with Dick, wasn’t it? He liked to ignore problems, like if he could pretend they’re not actually there, maybe they’ll go away and things will be okay. 

It doesn’t work like that though, at least not for Tim, and he finds himself unreasonably angry at Dick. Dick threw whatever relationship they could have had away. Dick didn’t just overlook Tim when he took Robin away from him: he threw away Tim like he was a piece of trash he didn’t even have to think twice about. 

Tim was easy to disregard. Tim was replaceable. Tim was not good enough for Dick, would never be good enough, and now Dick doesn’t just get to act like everything was okay when it’s not.

“Just go,” he snaps again when Dick makes no move to leave. Anger was bubbling up inside of him and he had no way to stop it. It was like a volcano, just waiting to explode. 

Dick shakes his head. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying right here, Tim.”

“I don’t need you,” Tim tells him, cruelly, like he wants him to hurt. “So just go.”

Only now does Dick hesitate, looking at Tim and then the door as if he’s really considering it, but he just shakes his head. “I know you’re mad at me, but I’m not going anywhere, Timmy.”

Tim huffs out his breath angrily. He wants to turn his back to Dick, but his ribs hurt too much and he’s not sure he could sleep on his side with his wrist being broken anyway. “Mad? I’m not mad at you Dick. I just hate you.” 

It sounds childish even to his own ears- much like a toddler who didn’t get his way, or perhaps a teenager whose parents just told him he can’t fly across the country on his own. Tim doesn’t think he’s ever told anyone he hated them before. If he did, he can’t recall. 

Does he hate Dick? He hates how Dick has hurt him. He hates how Dick didn’t seem to care for the longest time. Maybe he doesn’t hate Dick, but he hates what Dick has done to him. He cast Tim aside, and it was easy to do so. 

“That’s okay if you do, Tim.” Dick’s eyes are sad, and if Tim didn’t know any better, he’d say Dick looked like he was about to cry, but when had Dick ever cared what Tim thought or felt? “But I’m not leaving you, so you can hate me all you want.” 

It seems Dick had made his opinion. Fine. Fine. Tim was tired anyway. “Fine.” Dick can stay, just until morning, but Tim’s not going to talk to him the rest of the night. 

“Just go to sleep, Tim.”

Tim wants to tell him to fuck off, but despite the fact that he’s been sleeping for hours now, Tim is exhausted. The panic attack had taken everything out of him, and he falls right into sleep the second he closes his eyes. 

The final time he wakes up, it’s to someone running their fingers through his hair. Tim already knows it’s Bruce before he opens his eyes. 

“Hey, chum.” 

Tim smiles tiredly up at him, breathing in the now all too familiar scent of his aftershave. The clock reads 10 am-breakfast time. Tim can’t really feel his stomach, but he imagines he should eat.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asks, one hand in Tim’s hair and the other going up to rub along Tim’s jaw. It’s a nice feeling. 

“Okay,” Tim answers him. It’s not a lie. He must have gotten a dosage of pain medication recently: the pain is dull in his ribs and head, and his wrist doesn’t even hurt at all from where it’s wrapped up in a cast. 

Bruce smiles down at him again and Tim can’t help smiling back. He feels warm and safe, protected. 

“How about some breakfast?”

Tim nods, closing his eyes again as Bruce pulls lightly at Tim’s hair. It’s not sexual, not right now, just that Bruce likes pulling Tim’s hair and it feels oddly comforting right now. 

“Do you want to eat down with everyone or up by yourself?”

Tim briefly thinks over his options before deciding. “With everyone.”

“Alright then. Here, sit up. I’ll help you dress.”

It’s a bit awkward getting Tim into the shower. Bruce has to wrap plastic over Tim’s cast, and Tim can’t stand in the shower, so Bruce has to hold him up. There’s something weird here, at Bruce seeing Tim naked outside of their fucking. But he’s already seen Tim naked, so why be shy about it now? 

“Here, I’ll get your hair.” Bruce rubs shampoo into Tim’s scalp, his fingers pressing and massaging and Tim leans into and closes his eyes. 

Then they shut off the water and Bruce rubs some balm onto Tim’s ribs, and then helps him into a pair of sweats. 

“Your injuries will take time to heal,” Bruce warns them as they walk towards the kitchen.

Tim nods, resisting the urge to press himself into Bruce’s side. “Yeah, I know. I figure I’m benched?”

Bruce doesn’t answer him with words, just nods until they hit the kitchen. Alfred is pleased to see him, and helps Tim into his usual chair across from Damian. 

The brat and him make eye contact before they both look away and down at the table. It seems like Damian hasn’t told anyone at least. Good. They still need to talk, but it can wait until Tim settles. 

Dick and Jason were absent, but Tim knows they’re still here in the manor somewhere. Breakfast is quick as Alfred will only allow him a yogurt with some granola, which is okay because Tim only picks at it anyway. 

He needs to talk to Damian, but he’s not sure how to go about it. Bruce squeezes him on the shoulder on the way out, a fatherly gesture that no one blinks twice at. 

“Come debrief when you’re ready,” he tells Tim. 

“Yeah, I will. I just want to nap first, if that’s okay?”

Another squeeze. “Of course. Whenever you’re ready.” Bruce walks away and Tim sighs and sets out to find Damian. 

It’s not hard: the kid retreated to his room. Tim steels himself before knocking with his good hand. He doesn’t receive an answer and he almost thinks the kid will ignore him before the door finally swings open. 

The two boys just stare at each other, eyes and face blank, not telling the other to see their emotions. A cat escapes Damian’s room and wraps its tail around Tim’s ankle. He needs to sit soon, he can’t stand much longer. 

“Can I come in?” Tim finally asks. 

Tim’s almost expecting the kid to say no, but he jerks his head and steps to the side to let Tim and the cat back in. 

His room is not what Tim was expecting. He’s never been in the kid’s room before, but he was expecting the kind of room you think of where a demon baby would live. 

Instead, it looks like a normal preteen boy room. It’s not dirty, but it’s not exactly neat, either. Clothes were kicked off onto the floor, arts supplies were spilled all over the desk, the bed was unmade, and there were at least three animals in the room. 

For one second, Tim thinks of the hand that had squeezed his under the desk, the way Damian had clung to him but Tim had been too shook himself to notice.

“I can’t stand for much longer,” Tim adds once the brat makes no other move.

Damian nods and closes the door behind them. Then he walks over to his desk chair and picks up the cat on it, gently setting the animal down on the bed. The cat meows in protest but curls up onto a pillow. 

“Sit,” Damian instructs, pointing to the chair and Tim doesn’t hesitate to do so. Damian hesitates himself, before settling to sit on the edge of his bed. For a few minutes, they just stare at each other, neither one of them wanting to make the first move. 

Tim doesn’t even know what to say. How does one start this conversation? He can’t just say, “Hey brat, I know you think your father is raping me, but he’s not because I threw myself at him and he just went with it?” No, he couldn’t say that and he doesn’t think Damian would appreciate it either.

It’s Damian who says something first. “Before you lost consciousness,” he starts, not looking at Tim, “you said everything was consensual?”

Tim coughs, rubbing at the back of his neck with his good hand. He’s a bit embarrassed about having this conversation with the kid for many reasons, but he’s also nervous and uncomfortable, too. He doesn’t know how Damian will react: he’s always been a wild card. 

“Yeah, it’s consensual.”

“It’s?”

“What?” 

“You said it’s, not was. So it’s still happening?” 

Tim picks up a pencil from Damian’s desk and spins it around his fingers. He doesn’t think it would be smart to lie to Damian right now. “It’s-yeah. Yeah, it’s still happening.” He shrugs. “I mean, it’ll probably stop for a few weeks now that I’m injured.” Maybe. Tim’s mouth still works, anyway. He spins the pencil around some more. 

“I don’t understand,” Damian tells him, and his voice is strong, demanding. He wants Tim to answer all of his questions. Tim doesn’t know if he could do that. 

“You don’t have to understand,” Tim tells him. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay?” 

Damian shakes his head. He grips his own sheets, clenching and unclenching his knuckles. “You are hardly in any position to make demands right now, Drake.”

“Damian.” This is Tim’s worst nightmare. If Bruce found out that Damian knew, he’d stop everything. He’d never touch Tim again, and that’s Tim's biggest nightmare. (Even if sometimes he thinks that maybe he wishes they never started this, but he never lets himself think about that for long.) Tim needs Damian to understand how important it is that no one finds out.

It’s not Tim’s reputation he cares about. Bruce would be absolutely ruined if anyone found out. He’d lose the respect of so many people. Diana and Clark may never speak to Bruce again. The rest of the League would lose all their respect and would stop looking at Batman like he's their god. 

What would Alfred think? Dick and Jason? It may be the one thing Alfred would never forgive Bruce for.

The public would have a field day. Bruce would never be able to leave the manor again. They’d call Bruce all kinds of things: rapist, groomer, abuser. They’d throw around words like incest and manipulative, father and son. 

They’d come to their own conclusions and they would talk and talk. They’d be wrong but they wouldn’t understand. 

Bruce Wayne and Batman as an extension would be ruined. 

“Damian,” Tim repeats. “Think about what would happen if anyone found out.” Damian opens his mouth, but Tim rushes on. “Not about me, I don’t care what people think of me. Imagine what would happen to Bruce if you told anyone.”

Damian stills and Tim knows he has him. In an instant, Tim knows Damian is thinking over the same thing Tim just did. The way he sits up straight and frowns, Tim also knows he’s come to the same conclusion: if Damian told anyone, he’d ruin his father. 

“I see,” Damian says in a bland voice. 

Tim nods, ignoring the pain in his head. He feels a bit bad about manipulating the kid, but Tim has to protect Bruce-has to protect their secret. Damian is irrelevant to this equation and he has to do whatever he needs to to eliminate him. 

“You can’t tell.” 

Damian nods. “I can’t tell,” he agrees, and they don’t speak again for a bit. 

“I still want to know,” Damian tells him eventually. He crosses his arms, looking like he’s getting some of his strength back. “You owe me that at the very least.”

I don’t owe you shit, Tim thinks but lets his shoulders slump and he finally drops the pencil. Damian had saved his life, after all. Maybe he can talk for just a bit longer. “I don’t know what to tell you, Damian. I asked for everything. Bruce just . . gave in, I guess.” 

“But why?” Damian demands. “Why would you even want our Father like that?” 

Tim frowns. It’s the first time he ever heard Damian refer to Bruce as Tim’s father. A part of him sings at it, but he’s mostly confused. Damian has never acknowledged Tim as his brother before, not unless he’s trying to kill him to be the real heir. 

“Bruce isn’t my dad, Damian.” Maybe on paper, but Bruce certainly hasn’t acted as much of a father to Tim. 

It took awhile for Tim to understand it. Bruce couldn’t look at Tim as a son, not after losing Jason. He couldn’t set himself up to get hurt like that again, so Bruce and Tim have always been more of a partnership. 

Even when Tim’s parents died, and Bruce did legally adopt him, they were only father and son on paper. Bruce and him were partners, and Bruce acted like it. 

“How could you say that?” Damian’s tone is demanding, and on the edge of anger. 

He’s angry at Tim and Tim doesn’t know why. (Ever since this whole thing started, he’s been feeling less and less of a detective. If he’s being honest, and Tim doesn’t allow himself to be honest with himself for very long, he’s been feeling less of himself overall for awhile now.)

“He gave you the company,” Damian continues, unaware of Tim’s internal struggle. “He would choose you as his Robin. You’re his detective.” 

“But he’s not my dad,” Tim argues. “We aren’t like that, Damian. That’s all a partnership.”

Damian shakes his head, like he’s disagreeing with Tim, and Tim can’t seem to think of any way to make Damian see. “Even if that is true, which it’s not, why would he want you as a concubine? Why you want to be with Father anyway?" 

Tim tugs at his ear. He never really could answer that question, not when Bruce asked, and not when Stephanie did, either. He can’t even answer it when he asks himself. He wants Bruce to choose him, to be with him. He just needs Bruce, and Bruce must need him, too, because he never stops Tim, and sometimes he even initiates the sex.

“I don’t know,” Tim finally answers. “I just do.”

“That is a weak answer, Drake.”

Ah, there’s Damian. He’s starting to sound like himself more and more now. “It’s just the truth, Damian. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me everything. How did this start, anyway?”

Tim clears his throat and cocks an eyebrow at Damian. “You want to hear all the details of how I fuck your dad?” 

Damian flinches at the crude language. “Of course not! That is not what I mean and you know it, Drake!”

Tim does know it, but he doesn’t owe the kid anything. He's grateful Damian helped him, but he's told him enough as it is. The cat on the pillow wakes up and stretches out it’s lithe body. It licks at Damian’s hand before trotting off the bed and scratching at the door. It wants out. Tim wants out too, so he stands and hobbles for the door. 

“I need to rest,” he tells Damian and it’s not even a lie. He’s suddenly exhausted and he thinks he could sleep till lunch, and then after that he’ll finally go debrief and get the full story down in the cave. “See you around, Damian.”

“Drake! We aren’t done here, you can not just-”

But Tim’s already hobbling back to his room, the cat following after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise shawtyyyyyy! Two chapters in one week, would you look at that! Originally this chapter wasn't going to be posted till Wednesday, and it's kind of short, but after looking at my college schedule, I figured I'd get this chapter at early because it honestly may be two or three weeks before I'll have the time to post another chapter. 
> 
> So Damian knows! What do y’all think will happen? Thanks so much for the kudus and comments, I am blown away with the reaction to this story: I really only thought it'd get at most maybe 100 reads, haha. See you guys later!
> 
> P.S-The idea for the title of this chapter is from the show 9-1-1, where they use the names of the character plus the word begins for episodes focusing around those characters and their backstory!


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